Tm  TRAINING 

or  A 

FORESTOR 

GJFFOHJ)  'PINCHOt 


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150M/01 -92— 941680 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A 
FORESTER 


THE    TRAINING    OF 
A  FORESTER 


BY 

GIFFORD  PINCHOT 


WITH  EIGHT  ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHILADELPHIA  &  LONDON 

J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT  COMPANY 

1914 


COPTRIUHT,     I9I4,    BY   J.    B.    LII'PINCOTT   UOMrANY 


PUBLISHED    FEBRUARY,   I914 


PRINTED   BT   J.    B.    LIPPINCOTT   COMPANY 

AT  THE  WASHINGTON  SQUARE  PRESS 

PHILADELPHIA,    U.S.A. 


To 
OVERTON  W.  PRICE 

Fbiend  and  Fellow  Worker 
TO  whom  is  due,  more  than  to  any  other  man,  the 

HIGH  efficiency  OF  THE  UNITED  STATES  FOREST  SERVICE 


PREFACE 

At  one  time  or  another,  the  largest  ques- 
tion before  every  young  man  is,  "  What 
shall  I  do  with  my  life?  "  Among  the  possi- 
ble openings,  which  best  suits  his  ambition, 
his  tastes,  and  his  capacities?  Along  what 
line  shall  he  undertake  to  make  a  successful 
career?  The  search  for  a  life  work  and  the 
choice  of  one  is  surely  as  important  business 
as  can  occupy  a  boy  verging  into  manhood. 
It  is  to  help  in  the  decision  of  those  who  are 
considering  forestry  as  a  profession  that  this 
little  book  has  been  written. 

To  the  young  man  who  is  attracted  to 
forestry  and  begins  to  consider  it  as  a  possi- 
ble profession,  certain  questions  present 
themselves.  What  is  forestr}^?  If  he  takes 
it  up,  what  will  his  work  be,  and  where? 
Does  it  in  fact  offer  the  satisfying  type  of 


PREFACE 

outdoor  life  which  it  appears  to  offer?  What 
chance  does  it  present  for  a  successful  career, 
for  a  career  of  genuine  usefulness,  and  what 
is  the  chance  to  make  a  living?  Is  he  fitted 
for  it  in  character,  mind,  and  body?  If  so, 
what  training  does  he  need?  These  ques- 
tions deserve  an  answer. 

To  the  men  whom  it  really  suits,  forestry 
offers  a  career  more  attractive,  it  may  be 
said  in  all  fairness,  than  any  other  career 
whatsoever.  I  doubt  if  any  other  profession 
can  show  a  membership  so  uniformly  and 
enthusiastically  in  love  with  the  work.  The 
men  who  have  taken  it  up,  practised  it,  and 
left  it  for  other  work  are  few.  But  to  the 
man  not  fully  adapted  for  it,  forestry  must 
be  punishment,  pure  and  simple.  Those  who 
have  begun  the  study  of  forestry,  and  then 
have  learned  that  it  was  not  for  them,  have 
doubtless  been  more  in  number  than  those 
who  have  followed  it  through. 


PREFACE 

I  urge  no  man  to  make  forestry  his  pro- 
fession, but  rather  to  keep  away  from  it  if 
he  can.  In  forestry  a  man  is  either  alto- 
gether at  home  or  very  much  out  of  place. 
Unless  he  has  a  compelling  love  for  the 
Forester's  life  and  the  Forester's  work,  let 
him  keep  out  of  it. 

G.P. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE) 

What  la  a  Forest  ? 13 

The  Forester's  Knowledge 18 

The  Forest  and  the  Nation 19 

The  Forester's  Point  of  View 23 

The  Establishment  of  Forestry 27 

The  Work  of  a  Forester 30 

The  Forest  Service 30 

The  Forest  Supervisor 46 

The  Trained  Forester 60 

Personal  Equipment 63 

State  Forest  Work 84 

The  Forest  Service  in  Washington 89 

Private  Forestry 106 

Forest  Schools 114 

The  Opportunity 116 

Training 123 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

PAGE 

A  Forest  Ranger  Looking  for  Fire  from  a  National 
Forest  Lookout  Station Frontispiece 

Stringing  a  Forest  Telephone  Line 32 

Forest  Rangers  Scaling  Timber 43 

Western  Yellow  Pine  Seed  Collected  bt  the  Forest 
Service  for  Planting  up  Denuded  Lands 47 

A  Forest  Examiner  Running  a  Compass  Line 59 

Brush  Piling  in  a  National  Forest  Timber  Sale 95 

Forest  Rangers  Getting  Instruction  in  Methods  of 
Work  from  a  District  Forest  Officer 105 

Forest  Service  Men  Making  Fresh  Measurements  in 
the  Missouri  Swamps 136 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A 
FORESTER 

WHAT  IS  A  FOREST? 

FiKST,  What  is  forestry?  Forestry  is  the 
knowledge  of  the  forest.  In  particular,  it  is 
the  art  of  handling  the  forest  so  that  it  will 
render  whatever  service  is  required  of  it 
without  being  impoverished  or  destroyed. 
For  example,  a  forest  may  be  handled  so  as 
to  produce  saw  logs,  telegraph  poles,  barrel 
hoops,  firewood,  tan  bark,  or  turpentine. 
The  main  purpose  of  its  treatment  may  be  to 
prevent  the  washing  of  soil,  to  regulate  the 
flow  of  streams,  to  support  cattle  or  sheep, 
or  it  may  be  handled  so  as  to  supply  a  wide 
range  and  combination  of  uses.  Forestry 
is  the  art  of  producing  from  the  forest  what- 
ever it  can  yield  for  the  service  of  man. 

13 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Before  we  can  understand  forestry,  cer- 
tain facts  about  the  forest  itself  must  be 
kept  in  mind.  A  forest  is  not  a  mere  collec- 
tion of  individual  trees,  just  as  a  city  is  not 
a  mere  collection  of  unrelated  men  and 
women,  or  a  Nation  like  ours  merely  a  cer- 
tain number  of  independent  racial  groups. 
A  forest,  like  a  city,  is  a  complex  community 
with  a  life  of  its  own.  It  has  a  soil  and  an 
atmosphere  of  its  own,  chemically  and  physi- 
cally different  from  any  other,  with  plants 
and  shrubs  as  well  as  trees  which  are  peculiar 
to  it.  It  has  a  resident  population  of  inspects 
and  higher  animals  entirely  distinct  from 
that  outside.  ^lost  important  of  all,  frt)m 
the  Forester's  point  of  view,  the  members  of 
the  forest  live  in  an  exact  and  intricate  sys- 
tem of  competition  and  mutual  assistance, 
of  help  or  harm,  which  extends  to  all  the 
inhabitants  of  this  complicated  city  of 
trees. 

14 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  trees  in  a  forest  are  all  helped  by 
mutually  protecting  each  other  against  high 
winds,  and  by  producing  a  richer  and  moister 
soil  than  would  be  possible  if  the  trees  stood 
singly  and  apart.  They  compete  among 
themselves  by  their  roots  for  moisture  in  the 
soil,  and  for  light  and  space  by  the  growth  of 
their  crowns  in  height  and  breadth.  Perhaps 
the  strongest  weapon  which  trees  have 
against  each  other  is  growth  in  height.  In 
certain  species  intolerant  of  shade,  the  tree 
which  is  overtopped  has  lost  the  race  for 
good.  The  number  of  young  trees  which  de- 
stroy each  other  in  this  fierce  struggle  for 
existence  is  prodigious,  so  that  often  a  few 
score  per  acre  are  all  that  survive  to  middle 
or  old  age  out  of  many  tens  of  thousands  of 
seedlings  which  entered  the  race  of  life  on 
approximately  even  terms. 

Not  only  has  a  forest  a  character  of  its 
own,  which  arises  from  the  fact  that  it  is  a 

15 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

community  of  trees,  but  each  species  of  tree 
has  peculiar  characteristics  and  habits  also. 
Just  as  in  New  York  City,  for  example,  the 
French,  the  Germans,  the  Italians,  the  Hun- 
garians, and  the  Chinese  each  have  quarters 
of  their  own,  and  in  those  quarters  live  in 
accordance  with  habits  which  distinguish 
each  race  from  all  the  others,  so  the  different 
species  of  pines  and  hemlocks,  oaks  and 
maples  prefer  and  are  found  in  certain  defi- 
nite types  of  locality,  and  live  in  accord- 
ance with  definite  racial  habits  which  are  as 
general  and  unfailing  as  the  racial  char- 
acteristics which  distinguish,  for  example, 
the  Italians  from  the  Germans,  or  the 
Swedes  from  the  Chinese. 

The  most  important  of  these  characteris- 
tics of  race  or  species  are  those  which  are 
concerned  with  the  relation  of  each  to  light, 
heat,  and  moisture.  Thus,  a  river  birch  will 
die  if  it  has  only  as  much  water  as  will  suffice 

16 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

to  keep  a  post  oak  in  the  best  condition,  and 
the  warm  climate  in  which  the  balsam  fir 
would  perish  is  just  suited  to  the  require- 
ments of  a  long  leaf  pine  or  a  magnolia. 

The  tolerance  of  a  tree  for  shade  may- 
vary  greatly  at  different  times  of  its  life, 
but  a  white  i^ine  always  requires  more  light 
than  a  hemlock,  and  a  beech  throughout  its 
life  will  flourish  with  less  sunshine  or  re- 
flected light  than,  for  example,  an  oak  or 
a  tulip  tree. 

Trees  are  limited  in  their  distribution  also 
by  their  adaptability,  in  which  they  vary 
greatly.  Thus  a  bald  cypress  will  grow  both 
in  wetter  and  in  dryer  land  than  an  oak;  a 
red  cedar  will  flourish  from  Florida  to  the 
Canadian  line,  while  other  species,  like  the 
Eastern  larch,  the  Western  mountain  hem- 
lock, or  the  big  trees  of  California,  are  con- 
fined in  their  native  localities  within  ex- 
tremely narrow  limits. 
2  17 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

THE   FORESTER'S   KNOWLEDGE 

The  trained  Forester  must  know  the 
forest  as  a  doctor  knows  the  human  machine. 
First  of  all,  he  must  be  able  to  distinguish  the 
diiFerent  trees  of  which  the  forest  is  com- 
posed, for  that  is  like  learning  to  read.  He 
must  know  the  way  they  are  made  and  the 
way  they  grow;  but  far  more  important  than 
all  else,  he  must  base  his  knowledge  upon 
that  part  of  forestry  which  is  called  Silvics, 
the  knowledge  of  the  relation  of  trees  to 
light,  heat,  and  moisture,  to  the  soil,  and  to 
each  other. 

The  well-trained  Forester  must  also  know 
the  forest  shrubs  and  at  least  the  more  im- 
portant smaller  forest  plants,  something  of 
the  insect  and  animal  life  of  his  domain,  and 
the  birds  and  fish.  He  must  have  a  good 
working  knowledge  of  rocks,  soils,  and 
streams,   and   of  the  methods   of  making 

18 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

roads,  trails,  and  bridges.  He  should  be  an 
expert  in  woodcraft,  able  to  travel  the  forest 
safely  and  surely  by  day  or  by  night.  It  is 
essential  that  he  should  have  a  knowledge 
of  the  theory  and  the  practice  of  lumbering, 
and  he  should  know  something  about  lumber 
markets  and  the  value  of  lumber,  about  sur- 
veying and  map  making,  and  many  other 
matters  which  are  considered  more  at  length 
in  the  Chapter  on  Training.  There  are  as 
yet  in  America  comparatively  few  men  who 
have  acquired  even  fairly  well  the  more  im- 
portant knowledge  which  should  be  included 
in  the  training  of  a  Forester. 


THE  FOREST  AND  THE  NATION 

The  position  of  the  forest  in  the  house- 
keeping of  any  nation  is  unlike  that  of  any 
other  great  natural  resource,  for  the  forest 
not   only   furnishes   wood,    without   which 

19 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

civilization  as  we  know  it  would  be  impossi- 
ble, but  serves  also  to  protect  or  make  valu- 
able many  of  the  other  things  without  which 
we  could  not  get  on.  Thus  the  forest  cover 
protects  the  soil  from  the  effects  of  wind, 
and  holds  it  in  place.  For  lack  of  it 
hundreds  of  thousands  of  square  miles  have 
been  converted  by  the  winds  from  moder- 
ately fertile,  productive  land  to  arid  drifting 
sands.  Narrow  strips  of  forest  planted  as 
windbreaks  make  agriculture  possible  in  cer- 
tain regions  by  preventing  destruction  of 
crops  by  moisture-stealing  dry  winds  which 
so  afflict  the  central  portions  of  our  country. 
Without  the  forests  the  great  bulk  of  our 
mining  for  coal,  metals,  and  the  precious 
minerals  would  be  either  impossible  or  vastly 
more  expensive  than  it  is  at  present,  because 
the  galleries  of  mines  are  propped  with 
wood,  and  so  protected  against  caving  in. 
So  far,  no  satisfactory  substitute  for  the 

20 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

wooden  railroad  tie  has  been  devised;  and 
our  whole  system  of  land  transportation  is 
directly  dependent  for  its  existence  upon  the 
forest,  which  supplies  more  than  one 
hundred  and  twenty  million  new  railroad 
ties  every  year  in  the  United  States  alone. 

The  forest  regulates  and  protects  the  flow 
of  streams.  Its  effect  is  to  reduce  the  height 
of  floods  and  to  moderate  extremes  of  low 
water.  The  official  measurements  of  the 
United  States  Geological  Survey  have 
finally  settled  this  long-disputed  question. 
By  protecting  mountain  slopes  against  ex- 
cessive soil  wash,  it  protects  also  the  lowlands 
upon  which  this  wash  would  otherwise  be 
deposited  and  the  rivers  whose  channels  it 
would  clog.  It  is  well  within  the  truth  to 
say  that  the  utility  of  any  system  of  rivers 
for  transportation,  for  irrigation,  for  water- 
power,  and  for  domestic  supply  depends  in 
great  part  upon  the  protection  which  forests 

21 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

oifer  to  the  headwaters  of  the  streams,  and 
that  without  such  protection  none  of  these 
uses  can  be  expected  long  to  endure. 

Of  the  two  basic  materials  of  our  civiliza- 
tion, iron  and  wood,  the  forest  supplies  one. 
The  dominant  place  of  the  forest  in  our 
national  economy  is  well  illustrated  by  the 
fact  that  no  article  whatsoever,  whether  of 
use  or  ornament,  whether  it  be  for  food, 
shelter,  clothing,  convenience,  protection,  or 
decoration,  can  be  produced  and  delivered  to 
the  user,  as  industry  is  now  organized,  with- 
out the  help  of  the  forest  in  supplying  wood. 
An  examination  of  the  history  of  any  article, 
including  the  production  of  the  raw  material, 
and  its  manufacture,  transportation,  and  dis- 
tribution, will  at  once  make  this  point  clear. 

The  forest  is  a  national  necessity.  With- 
out the  material,  the  protection,  and  the 
assistance  it  supplies,  no  nation  can  long 
succeed.     Many  regions  of  the  old  world, 

22 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

such  as  Palestine,  Greece,  Northern  Africa, 
and  Central  India,  offer  in  themselves  the 
most  impressive  object  lessons  of  the  effect 
upon  national  prosperity  and  national  char- 
acter of  the  neglect  of  the  forest  and  its  con- 
sequent destruction. 


THE  FORESTER'S  POINT  OF 
VIEW 

The  central  idea  of  the  Forester,  in  hand- 
ling the  forest,  is  to  promote  and  perpetuate 
its  greatest  use  to  men.  His  purpose  is  to 
make  it  serve  the  greatest  good  of  the  great- 
est number  for  the  longest  time.  Before  the 
members  of  any  other  profession  dealing 
with  natural  resources,  the  Foresters  ac- 
quired the  long  look  ahead.  This  was  only 
natural,  because  in  forestry  it  is  seldom  that 
a  man  lives  to  harvest  the  crop  which  he 
helped  to  sow.    The  Forester  must  look  f  or- 

23 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ward,  because  the  natural  resource  with 
which  he  deals  matures  so  slowly,  and  be- 
cause, if  steps  are  to  be  taken  to  insure  for 
succeeding  generations  a  supply  of  the 
things  the  forest  yields,  they  must  be  taken 
long  in  advance.  The  idea  of  using  the 
forest  first  for  the  greatest  good  of  the 
present  generation,  and  then  for  the  great- 
est good  of  succeeding  generations  through 
the  long  future  of  the  nation  and  the  race — 
that  is  the  Forester's  point  of  view. 

The  use  of  foresight  to  insure  the  exist- 
ence of  the  forest  in  the  future,  and,  so  far 
as  practicable,  the  continued  or  increasing 
abundance  of  its  service  to  men,  naturally 
suggested  the  use  of  foresight  in  the  same 
way  as  to  other  natural  resources  as  well. 
Thus  it  was  the  Forester's  point  of  view, 
applied  not  only  to  the  forest  but  to  the 
lands,  the  minerals,  and  the  streams,  which 
produced  the  Conservation  policy.    The  idea 

24 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  applying  foresight  and  common-sense  to 
the  other  natural  resources  as  well  as  to  the 
forest  was  natural  and  inevitable.  It  works 
out,  equally  as  a  matter  of  course,  into  the 
conception  of  a  planned  and  orderly  de- 
velopment of  all  that  the  earth  contains  for 
the  uses  of  men.  This  leads  in  turn  to  the 
application  of  the  same  principle  to  other 
questions  and  resources.  It  was  foreseen 
from  the  beginning  by  those  who  were  re- 
sponsible for  inaugurating  the  Conservation 
movement  that  its  natural  development 
would  in  time  work  out  into  a  planned  and 
orderly  scheme  for  national  efficiency,  based 
on  the  elimination  of  waste,  and  directed 
toward  the  best  use  of  all  we  have  for  the 
greatest  good  of  the  greatest  number  for  the 
longest  time.  It  is  easy  to  see  that  this 
principle  (the  Forester's  principle,  first 
brought  to  public  attention  by  Foresters)  is 
the  key  to  national  success. 

25 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forestry,  then,  is  seen  to  be  peculiarly 
essential  to  the  national  prosperity,  both 
now  and  hereafter.  National  degradation 
and  decay  have  uniformly  followed  the  ex- 
cessive destruction  of  forests  by  other 
nations,  and  will  inevitably  become  our  por- 
tion if  we  continue  to  destroy  our  forests 
three  times  faster  than  they  are  produced, 
as  we  are  doing  now.  The  principles  of 
forestry,  therefore,  must  occupy  a  command- 
ing place  in  determining  the  future  pros- 
perity or  failure  of  our  nation,  and  this 
commanding  position  in  the  field  of  ideas  is 
naturally  and  properly  reflected  in  the 
dignity  and  high  standing  which  the  pro- 
fession of  forestry,  young  as  it  is,  has  already 
acquired  in  the  United  States.  This  posi- 
tion it  must  be  the  first  care  of  every  member 
of  the  profession  to  maintain  and  increase. 

In  the  long  run,  no  profession  rises 
higher  than  the  degree  of  public  considera- 

26 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

tion  which  marks  its  members.  The  pro- 
fession of  forestry  is  in  many  ways  a  pe- 
culiarly responsible  profession,  but  in  noth- 
ing more  so  than  in  its  vital  connection  with 
the  whole  future  welfare  of  our  country  and 
in  the  obligation  which  lies  upon  its  mem- 
bers to  see  that  its  reputation  and  standing, 
which  are  the  measures  of  its  capacity  for 
usefulness,  are  kept  strong  and  clear. 


THE  ESTABLISHMENT  OF 
FORESTRY 

In  the  United  States,  forestry  is  passing 
out  of  the  pioneer  phase  of  agitation  and 
the  education  of  public  opinion,  and  into  the 
permanent  phase  of  the  practice  of  the  pro- 
fession. The  first  steps  in  forestry  in  this 
country,  as  in  any  other  where  the  develop- 
ment and  destruction  of  natural  resources 
has  been  rapid,  were  necessarily  directed 
27 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

mainly  to  informing  the  public  mind  upon 
the  importance  of  forestry,  and  to  building 
up  national  and  State  laws  and  organiza- 
tions for  the  protection  of  timberlands  set 
aside  for  the  public  benefit.  The  right  to  be 
heard  with  respect  by  the  men  who  were 
already  in  control  of  the  larger  part  of  our 
total  forest  wealth  had  to  be  won,  and  has 
been  won.  What  is  more,  in  the  teeth  of 
the  bitterest  opposition  of  private  special 
interests,  the  right  of  the  public  to  first  con- 
sideration in  the  protection  and  development 
of  the  forest  and  of  all  the  resources  it  con- 
tains had  to  be  asserted  and  established. 
That  has  now  been  done. 

In  the  United  States  these  steps  in  the 
movement  for  the  wise  use  of  the  forest  have 
been  taken  mainly  in  the  last  dozen  or  fifteen 
years,  during  which  the  Federal  forest  or- 
ganization has  grown  from  an  insignificant 
division  of  less  than  a  dozen  men  to  the 

28 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

present  United  States  Forest  Service,  of 
more  than  three  thousand  members.  During 
this  period,  also,  forestry,  both  as  a  profes- 
sion and  as  a  public  necessity,  has  won  en- 
during public  recognition,  and  at  the  same 
time  more  public  timberland  has  been  set 
aside  for  the  public  use  and  to  remain  in 
the  public  hands  than  during  all  the  rest  of 
our  historj^  put  together.  To-day  the  Na- 
tional Forests  are  reasonably  safe  in  the 
protection  of  public  opinion,  not  against  all 
attack,  it  is  true,  but  against  any  successful 
attempt  to  dismember  and  turn  them  over 
to  the  special  interests  who  already  control 
the  bulk  and  the  best  of  our  forests.  The 
public  has  accepted  forestry  as  necessary  to 
the  public  welfare,  both  in  the  present  and 
in  the  future ;  State  forest  organizations  are 
springing  up ;  forestry  has  won  the  right  to 
be  heard  in  the  business  offices  as  well  as  in 
the  conventions  of  the  private  owners  of 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

forest  land ;  and  the  time  for  the  practice  of 
the  profession  has  fully  come. 


THE  WORK  OF  A  FORESTER 

What  does  a  Forester  do?  I  will  try  to 
answer  this  question,  first,  with  reference  to 
the  United  States  Forest  Service,  and  later 
as  to  the  numerous  other  fields  of  activity 
which  are  opening  or  have  already  opened 
to  the  trained  Forester  in  the  United  States. 

THE  FOREST  SERVICE 

The  United  States  Forest  Service  is  re- 
sponsible both  for  the  general  progress  of 
forestry,  so  far  as  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment is  concerned,  and  for  the  protection 
and  use  of  the  National  Forests.  These 
National  Forests  now  cover  an  area  of  one 
hundred  and  eighty-seven  million  acres,  or 
as  much  land  as  is  included  in  all  the  New 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

England  States,  with  New  York,  Penn- 
sylvania, New  Jersey,  Delaware,  Maryland, 
Virginia  and  West  Virginia.  The  head  of 
the  Service,  whose  official  title  is  "  Forester," 
is  charged  with  the  great  task  of  protecting 
this  vast  area  against  fire,  theft,  and  other 
depredations,  and  of  making  all  its  re- 
sources, the  wood,  water,  and  grass,  the 
minerals,  and  the  soil,  available  and  useful 
to  the  people  of  the  United  States  under 
regulations  which  will  secure  development 
and  prevent  destruction  or  waste. 

The  United  States  Forest  Service  con- 
sists, first,  of  a  protective  force  of  Forest 
Guards  and  Forest  Rangers,  who  spend 
practically  the  whole  of  their  time  in  the 
forest;  second,  of  an  executive  staff  of 
Forest  Supervisors  and  their  assistants,  who 
have  immediate  charge  of  the  handling  of  the 
National  Forests;  and  third,  of  an  adminis- 
trative staff  divided  between  headquarters 
31 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

in  Washington  and  the  six  local  administra- 
tive offices  in  the  West,  where  the  National 
Forests  mainly  lie. 

The  work  of  a  Forest  Ranger  is,  first  of 
all,  to  protect  the  District  committed  to  his 
charge  against  fire.  That  comes  before  all 
else.  For  that  purpose,  the  Ranger  patrols 
his  District  during  the  seasons  when  fires 
are  dangerous,  or  watches  for  signs  of  fire 
from  certain  high  points,  called  fire-look- 
outs, or  both.  He  keeps  the  trails  and  fire 
lines  clear  and  the  telephone  in  working 
order,  and  sees  to  it  that  the  fire  fighting 
tools,  such  as  spades,  axes,  and  rakes,  are  in 
good  condition  and  ready  for  service.  If  he 
is  wise,  he  establishes  such  relations  with  the 
people  who  live  in  his  neighborhood  that 
they  become  his  volunteer  assistants  in 
watching  for  forest  fires,  in  taking  precau- 
tions against  them,  and  in  notifying  him  of 
them  when  they  do  take  place. 

32 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Fighting  a  forest  fire  in  some  respects  is 
like  fighting  a  fire  in  a  city.  In  both,  the 
first  and  most  necessary  thing  is  to  get  men 
and  apparatus  to  the  site  of  the  fire  at  the 
first  practicable  moment.  For  this  purpose, 
fire-engines  and  men  are  always  ready  in 
the  city,  while  in  the  forest  the  telephones, 
trails,  and  bridges  must  be  kept  in  condition, 
and  the  forest  officers  must  be  ready  to  move 
instantly  day  or  night. 

It  is  far  better  to  prevent  a  forest  fire 
from  starting  than  to  have  to  put  it  out  after 
it  has  started;  but  in  spite  of  all  the  care 
that  can  be  exercised  with  the  means  at 
hand,  many  fires  start.  Each  year  the 
Forest  Service  men  extinguish  not  less  than 
three  thousand  fires,  nearly  all  of  them  while 
they  are  still  small.  At  times,  however, 
when  the  woods  are  very  dry  and  the  wind 
blows  hard,  in  spite  of  all  that  can  be  done, 
a  fire  will  grow  large  enough  to  be  danger- 

3  33 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ous  not  only  to  the  forest  but  to  human  life. 
Thus  in  the  summer  of  1910,  the  driest  ever 
known  in  certain  parts  of  the  West,  high 
winds  drove  the  forest  fires  clear  beyond 
the  control  of  the  fire  fighters,  many  of 
whom  were  compelled  to  fight  for  their  own 
lives. 

The  worst  of  these  fires  were  in  Montana 
and  Idaho,  where  the  whole  power  of  the 
Forest  Service  was  used  against  them.  The 
Forest  Rangers,  under  the  orders  of  their 
Supervisors,  immediately  organized  or  took 
charge  of  small  companies  of  fire  fighters, 
and  began  the  work  of  getting  them  under 
control.  But  so  fierce  was  the  wind  and  so 
terrible  the  heat  of  the  fires  and  the  speed 
with  which  they  moved,  that  in  many  places 
it  became  a  question  of  saving  the  lives  of 
the  fire  fighters  rather  than  of  putting  out 
the  fires.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  nearly  a 

hundred  of  the  men  temporarily  employed  to 
34 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

help  the  Government  fire  fighters  lost  their 
lives,  and  many  more  would  have  died  but 
for  the  courage,  resource,  and  knowledge  of 
the  woods  of  the  Forest  Rangers. 

Take,  for  example,  the  case  of  Ranger 
Edward  C.  Pulaski,  of  the  Coeur  d'Alene 
National  Forest,  stationed  at  Wallace, 
Idaho.  Pulaski  had  charge  of  forty  Italians 
and  Poles.  He  had  been  at  work  with  them 
for  many  hours,  when  the  flames  grew  to  be 
so  threatening  that  it  became  a  question  of 
whether  he  could  save  his  men.  The  fire 
was  travelling  faster  than  the  men  could 
make  their  way  through  the  dense  forest, 
and  the  only  hope  was  to  find  some  place 
into  which  the  fire  could  not  come.  Accord- 
ingly Pulaski  guided  his  party  at  a  run 
through  the  blinding  smoke  to  an  abandoned 
mine  he  knew  of  in  the  neighborhood.  When 
they  reached  it,  he  sent  the  men  into  the 
workings  ahead  of  him,  hung  a  wet  blanket 

35 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

across  the  mouth  of  the  tunnel,  and  himself 
stood  there  on  guard.  The  fierce  heat,  the 
stifling  air,  and  their  deadly  fear  drove  some 
of  the  foreigners  temporarily  insane,  and  a 
number  of  them  tried  to  break  out.  With 
di'awn  revolver  Pulaski  held  them  back.  One 
man  did  get  by  him  and  was  burned  to 
death.  Many  fainted  in  the  tunnel.  The 
Ranger  himself,  more  exposed  than  any  of 
his  men,  was  terribly  burned.  He  stood  at 
his  post,  however,  for  five  hours,  until  the 
fire  had  passed,  and  brought  his  party 
through  without  losing  a  single  man  except 
that  one  who  got  out  of  the  tunnel,  although 
his  own  injuries  were  so  severe  that  he  was 
in  the  hospital  for  two  months  as  a  result  of 
them.  The  record  of  the  Forest  Service  in 
these  terrible  fires  is  one  of  which  every 
Forester  may  well  be  proud. 

The  Ranger  must  protect  his  District,  not 
only  against  fire  but  against  the  theft  of 

36 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

timber  and  the  incessant  eiForts  of  land 
grabbers  to  steal  Government  lands.  To 
prevent  the  theft  of  timber  is  usually  not 
difficult,  but  it  is  far  harder  to  prevent  fake 
homesteaders,  fraudulent  mining  men,  and 
other  dishonest  claimants  from  seizing  upon 
land  to  which  they  have  no  right,  and  so 
preventing  honest  men  from  using  these 
claims  to  make  a  living. 

In  the  past,  this  problem  has  presented  the 
most  serious  difficulties,  and  still  occasion- 
ally does  so.  There  is  no  louder  shouter 
for  "justice"  than  a  balked  habitual  land 
thief  with  political  influence  behind  him.  To 
illustrate  the  kind  of  attack  upon  the  Forest 
Service  to  which  fraudulent  land  claims  have 
constantly  given  rise,  I  may  cite  the  state- 
ments made  during  one  of  the  annual  at- 
tempts in  the  Senate  to  break  down  the  Ser- 
vice. One  of  the  Senators  asserted  that  in 
his  State  the  Forest  Service  was  overbear- 

37 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ing  and  tyrannical,  and  that  in  a  particular 
case  it  had  driven  out  of  his  home  a  citizen 
known  to  the  Senator,  and  had  left  him  and 
his  family  to  wander  houseless  upon  the  hill- 
side, and  that  for  no  good  reason  whatsoever. 
This  statement,  if  it  had  been  true,  would 
at  once  have  destroyed  the  standing  of  the 
Service  in  the  minds  of  many  of  its  friends, 
and  would  have  led  to  immediate  defeat  in 
the  fight  then  going  on.  Fortunately,  the 
records  of  the  Service  were  so  complete,  and 
the  knowledge  of  field  conditions  on  the  part 
of  the  men  in  Washington  was  so  thorough, 
that  the  mere  mention  of  the  general  locality 
of  the  supposed  outrage  by  the  Senator 
made  it  easy  to  identify  the  individual  case. 
The  man  in  question,  instead  of  being  an 
honest  settler  with  a  wife  and  family,  was 
the  keeper  of  a  disreputable  saloon  and 
dance  hall,  a  well-known  law-breaker  whom 

the  local  authorities  had  tried  time  and  again 

38 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

to  dispossess  and  drive  away.  But  by  means 
of  his  fraudulent  claim  the  man  had  always 
defeated  the  local  officers.  When,  however, 
the  officers  of  the  Forest  Service  took  the 
case  in  hand,  the  situation  changed  and 
things  moved  quickly.  The  disreputable 
saloon  was  promptly  removed  from  the 
fraudulent  land  claim  by  means  of  which 
the  keeper  of  it  had  held  on,  and  this  thor- 
oughly undesirable  citizen  either  went  out 
of  business  or  removed  his  abominable  trade 
to  some  locality  outside  the  National  Forest. 

The  actual  facts  were  fully  brought  out 
in  the  debate  next  day,  remained  uncontra- 
dicted, and  saved  the  fight  for  the  Forest 
Service.  The  whole  incident  may  be  found 
at  length  in  the  Congressional  Record. 

The  Forest  Ranger  is  charged  with  over- 
seeing and  regulating  the  free  use  of  timber 
by  settlers  and  others  who  live  in  or  near  the 
National  Forests.     Last  year    (1912)    the 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forest  Service  gave  away  without  charge 
more  than  $196,000  worth  of  saw  timber, 
house  logs,  fencing,  fuel,  and  other  material 
to  men  and  women  who  needed  it  for  their 
own  use.  Usually  it  is  the  Ranger's  work 
to  issue  the  permits  for  this  free  use,  and  to 
designate  the  timber  that  may  be  cut.  For 
this  purpose,  he  must  be  well  acquainted 
with  the  kinds  and  the  uses  of  the  trees  in 
his  District,  and  it  is  most  important  that  he 
should  know  something  of  how  their  repro- 
duction can  best  be  secured,  in  order  that 
the  free  use  may  be  permitted  without  injury 
to  the  future  welfare  of  the  forest. 

A  Ranger  oversees  the  use  of  his  District 
for  the  grazing  of  cattle,  sheep,  and  other 
domestic  animals.  He  must  acquaint  him- 
self with  the  brands  and  marks  of  the  vari- 
ous owners,  and  should  be  well  posted  in  the 
essentials  of  the  business  of  raising  cattle, 
sheep,  and  horses.     The  allotment  of  graz- 

40 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ing  areas  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  problems 
to  adjust,  because  the  demand  is  almost 
always  for  much  more  range  than  is  avail- 
able and  the  division  of  what  range  there  is 
among  the  local  owners  of  stock  often  pre- 
sents serious  difficulties,  in  which  the 
Ranger's  local  knowledge  and  advice  is  con- 
stantly sought  by  his  superior  officer. 

There  is  a  wise  law,  passed  at  the  request 
of  the  Forest  Service,  under  which  land  in 
the  National  Forests  which  is  shown  to  be 
agi'icultural  may  be  entered  under  the  home- 
stead law,  and  used  for  the  making  of  homes. 
This  law  is  peculiarly  hard  to  carry  out  be- 
cause the  ceaseless  efforts  of  land  grabbers 
to  misuse  it  demand  great  vigilance  on  the 
part  of  the  Forest  Officers.  In  many  cases 
it  is  the  Ranger  who  makes  the  report  upon 
which  the  decision  as  to  the  agricultural  or 
non-agricultural  character  of  the  land  is 
based,  although  in  other  cases  the  examina- 

41 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

tions  to  determine  whether  the  land  is  really 
agricultural  in  character  are  made  by  Ex- 
aminers especially  trained  for  this  duty. 
Serious  controversies  into  which  politics 
enter  are  often  caused  by  the  efforts  of 
speculators  and  others,  under  pretext  of  this 
law,  to  get  possession  of  lands  chiefly  valu- 
able for  their  timber. 

The  building  and  maintenance  of  trails, 
telephone  lines,  roads,  bridges,  and  fences 
in  his  District  is  under  the  charge  of  the 
Ranger,  and  in  many  cases  Rangers  and 
Forest  Guards  are  appointed  by  the  State 
as  Wardens  to  see  to  it  that  the  game  and 
fish  laws  are  properly  enforced. 

Next  to  the  protection  of  his  District  from 
fire,  the  most  important  duty  of  the  Ranger 
has  to  do  with  the  sale  of  timber  and  the 
marking  of  the  individual  trees  which  are 
to  be  cut.  The  reproduction  of  the  forest 
depends  directly  on  what  trees  are  kept  for 

42 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

seed,  or  on  how  the  existing  young  growth 
is  protected  and  preserved  in  felling  and 
swamping  the  trees  which  have  been  marked 
for  cutting,  and  in  skidding  the  logs.  The 
disposal  of  the  slash  must  be  looked  after, 
for  it  has  much  to  do  with  forest  reproduc- 
tion, and  with  promoting  safety  from  fire. 
Then,  the  scaling  of  the  logs  determines  the 
amount  of  the  payment  the  Government  re- 
ceives for  its  timber,  and  there  are  often 
regulations  governing  the  transportation  of 
the  scaled  logs  whose  enforcement  is  of  great 
consequence  to  the  future  forest. 

Nearly  all  of  these  duties  the  Ranger  may 
perform  in  certain  cases  without  supervision, 
if  his  judgment  and  training  are  sufficient, 
but  the  marking  especially  is  often  done 
under  the  eye  or  in  accordance  with  the 
directions  of  the  technical  Forester,  whose 
duty  it  is  to  see  that  the  future  of  the  forest  is 
protected  by  enforcing  the  conditions  of  sale. 
43 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

These  are  but  a  part  of  the  duties  of  the 
Ranger,  for  he  is  concerned  with  all  the  uses 
which  his  District  may  serve.  The  streams, 
for  example,  may  be  important  for  city 
water  supply,  irrigation,  or  for  waterpower, 
and  their  use  for  these  purposes  must  be 
under  his  eye.  Hotels  and  saw-mills  on  sites 
leased  from  the  Government  may  dot  his 
District  here  and  there.  The  land  within 
National  Forests  may  be  put  to  a  thousand 
other  uses,  from  a  bee  ranch  on  the  Cleve- 
land Forest  in  southern  California  to  a 
whaling  station  on  the  Tongass  Forest  in 
Alaska,  all  of  which  means  work  for  him. 

The  result  of  all  this  is  that  the  Ranger 
comes  in  contact  with  city  dwellers,  irri- 
gators, cattlemen,  sheepmen,  and  horsemen, 
ranchers,  storekeepers,  hotel  men,  hunters, 
miners,  and  lumbermen,  and  above  all  with 
the  settlers  who  live  in  or  near  his  District. 
With  all  these  it  is  his  duty  to  keep  on  good 

44 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

terms,  for  well  he  knows  that  one  man  at 
certain  times  can  set  more  fires  than  a  regi- 
ment can  extinguish,  and  that  the  best  pro- 
tection for  his  District  comes  from  the 
friendly  interest  of  the  men  who  live  in  it 
or  near  it. 

A  Forest  Guard  is  in  effect  an  assistant  to 
the  Ranger,  and  may  be  called  upon  to  carry 
out  most  of  the  duties  which  fall  upon  a 
Ranger. 

The  foregoing  short  statement  will  make 
it  clear  that  preliminary  experience  as  a 
Ranger  may  be  of  the  utmost  value  to  the 
man  who  proposes  later  on  to  perform  in  the 
Government  Service  the  duties  of  a  trained 
Forester.  It  is  becoming  more  and  more 
common,  and  fortunately  so,  for  graduates 
of  forest  schools  to  begin  their  work  in  the 
United  States  Forest  Service  as  Rangers  or 
Forest  Guards.  The  man  who  has  done  well 
a  Ranger's  work,  like  the  graduate  of  an 

45 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

engineering  school  who,  after  graduation, 
has  entered  a  machine  shop  as  a  hand,  has 
acquired  a  body  of  practical  information  and 
experience  which  will  be  invaluable  to  him 
in  the  later  practice  of  his  profession,  and 
which  is  far  beyond  the  reach  of  any  man 
who  has  not  been  trained  in  the  actual  execu- 
tion of  this  work  on  the  ground  and  in  actual 
daily  contact  with  the  multifarious  uses  and 
users  of  the  forest. 


THE  FOREST  SUPERVISOR 

The  Supervisor  is  the  general  manager 
of  a  National  Forest.  The  responsibility  for 
the  protection,  care,  and  use  of  it  falls  upon 
him,  under  the  direction  of  the  District 
Forester.  The  Supervisor  is  responsible  for 
making  the  use  of  his  forest  as  valuable  and 
as  convenient  as  possible  for  the  people  in 
and  around  the  area  of  which  he  has  charge. 

46 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

He  deals  with  the  organizations  of  forest 
users,  such  as  local  stock  associations,  and 
issues  permits  for  grazing  live  stock  in  the 
forest.  Permits  for  cutting  small  amounts 
of  timber  are  granted  by  him,  and  he  adver- 
tises in  the  papers  the  sale  of  larger  amounts 
and  receives  bids  from  prospective  pur- 
chasers ;  keeps  the  accounts  of  his  forest ;  and 
makes  regular  reports  on  a  variety  of  im- 
portant subjects,  such  as  the  personnel  of  his 
forest  force,  the  permanent  improvements 
made  or  to  be  made,  the  permits  issued  for 
regular  and  special  uses  of  the  forest  and  for 
free  use  of  timber  and  forage,  the  number 
and  kinds  of  predatory  animals  killed,  the 
amount  of  forest  planting  accomplished,  and 
the  expense  and  losses  from  forest  fires.  He 
has  general  oversight  of  the  roads,  trails,  and 
other  improvements  on  his  forest;  and  pre- 
pares plans  for  the  extension  of  them.  In 
particular,  he  directs,  controls,  and  inspects 
47 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  work  of  the  Ranger  and  Guards,  and  in 
general,  he  attends  to  the  thousand  and  one 
matters  which  go  to  adjusting  the  use  of  the 
forest  to  the  needs  of  the  men  who  use  it, 
and  on  which  depends  whether  the  forest  is 
well  or  badly  thought  of  among  the  people 
whose  cooperation  or  opposition  have  so 
much  to  do  with  making  its  management 
successful  or  otherwise. 

The  Supervisor  spends  about  half  his 
time  in  the  office  and  half  in  the  field,  in- 
specting the  work  of  his  men  and  consulting 
with  them,  meeting  local  residents  or  asso- 
ciations of  local  residents  who  have  proposi- 
tions to  submit  for  improving  the  service  of 
the  forest  to  them,  or  for  correcting  mis- 
takes, or  who  wish  to  lay  before  the  Super- 
visor some  one  of  the  numberless  matters  in 
which  the  forest  affects  their  welfare.  The 
usefulness  of  the  Supervisor  depends  as 
much  upon  his  good  judgment,  his  ability  to 
48 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

meet  men  and  do  business  with  them,  and  his 
knowledge  of  local  needs  and  local  affairs, 
as  it  does  upon  his  knowledge  of  the  forest 
itself.  As  in  the  case  of  every  superior 
officer,  his  attitude  toward  his  work,  his 
energy,  his  good  sense,  and  his  good  will  are 
or  should  be  reflected  in  the  men  under  him, 
so  that  his  position  is  one  of  the  gi'eatest 
importance  in  determining  the  success  or 
failure  of  each  National  Forest,  and  hence  of 
the  Forest  Service  as  a  whole.  More  and 
more  of  the  trained  Foresters  in  the  Service 
are  seeking  and  securing  appointments  as 
Forest  Supervisors  because  of  the  interest 
and  satisfaction  they  find  in  the  work.  Such 
men  handle  both  the  professional  and  busi- 
ness sides  of  forest  management.  Many  of 
their  duties,  therefore,  are  described  in  the 
succeeding  chapter. 

The  position  of  Supei-visor  is  in  many  re- 
spects the  most  desirable  a  trained  Forester 
4  49 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

can  occupy  in  the  Forest  Service,  and  the 
most  responsible  of  the  field  positions. 


THE  TRAINED  FORESTER 

To  each  forest  where  timber  cutting  has 
become  important  there  are  assigned  one  or 
more  Forest  Assistants  or  Forest  Exami- 
ners. These  are  professionally  trained 
Foresters.  They  are  subordinate  upon  each 
forest  to  the  Supervisor  as  manager,  but  it  is 
their  work  which  has  most  to  do  with  decid- 
ing whether  the  Forest  Service  in  general  is 
to  be  successful  or  is  to  fail  in  the  great  task 
of  preserving  the  forest  by  wise  use. 

The  Forest  Assistant  secures  his  position 
with  the  Service  by  passing  an  examination 
devised  to  test  his  technical  knowledge  and 
his  ability.  After  he  has  served  two  years 
as  Forest  Assistant  the  quality  and  quantity 
of  his  work  will  have  determined  his  fitness 
50 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

to  continue  in  the  employ  of  the  Govern- 
ment. If  he  is  unfit  he  may  be  dropped,  for 
there  are  many  young  and  ambitious  men 
ready  to  step  into  his  place.  If  he  makes 
good  he  is  promoted  to  the  grade  of  Forest 
Examiner  and  is  put  definitely  in  charge  of 
certain  lines  of  professional  work ;  always,  of 
course,  under  the  direction  of  the  Supervisor, 
of  whom  he  becomes  the  adviser  on  all  prob- 
lems involving  technical  forestry. 

The  most  important  tasks  of  the  trained 
Forester  on  a  National  Forest  are  the  prepa- 
ration of  working  plans  for  the  use  of  the 
forest  by  methods  which  will  protect  and 
perpetuate  it  as  well,  and  the  carrying  out 
of  the  plans  when  made.  This  is  forestry  in 
the  technical  sense  of  the  word.  It  involves 
a  thorough  study  of  the  kinds  of  timber,  their 
amount  and  location,  their  rate  of  gro\\i:h, 
their  value,  the  ease  or  difficulty  of  their 
reproduction,  and  the  methods  by  which  the 
51 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

timber  can  be  cut  at  a  profit  and  at  the 
same  time  the  reproduction  of  the  forest  can 
be  safely  secured.  A  working  plan  usually 
includes  a  considerable  number  of  maps, 
which  often  have  to  be  drawn  in  the  first 
place  from  actual  surveys  on  the  ground  by 
the  Forest  Examiner.  These  maps  contain 
the  information  secured  by  working-plan 
studies,  and  are  of  the  first  necessity  for  the 
wise  and  skilful  handling  of  the  forest.  They 
often  constitute,  also,  most  important  docu- 
ments in  the  history  of  its  condition  and  use. 
On  many  of  the  National  Forests  the  need 
for  immediate  use  of  the  timber  is  so  urgent 
and  so  just  that  there  is  no  time  to  prepare 
elaborate  working  plans.  Timber  sales  must 
be  made,  and  made  at  once ;  but  they  must  be 
made,  nevertheless,  in  a  way  that  will  fully 
protect  the  futul-e  welfare  of  the  forest. 
Whether  working  plans  can  be  prepared  or 
not,  a  most  important  duty  of  the  technical 

52 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forester  is  to  work  out  the  conditions  under 
which  a  given  body  of  timber  can  be  cut  with 
safety  to  the  forest,  especially  with  safety  to 
its  reproduction  and  future  growth.  The 
principal  study  for  a  timber  sale  will  usually 
include  an  examination  of  the  general 
features  and  condition  of  the  forest,  and  the 
determination  of  the  diameter  down  to  which 
it  is  advisable  to  cut  the  standing  trees,  a 
diameter  which  must  be  fixed  at  such  a  size 
as  will  protect  the  forest  and  make  the 
lumbering  pay.  It  will  include  also  an  in- 
vestigation, more  or  less  thorough  and  com- 
plete, as  the  conditions  warrant,  of  the  silvi- 
cal  habits  of  one  or  more  of  the  species  of 
trees  in  that  forest.  The  areas  which  form 
natural  units  for  the  logging  and  trans- 
portation of  the  timber  must  be  worked  out 
and  laid  off,  and  careful  estimates,  or 
measurements,  of  the  amount  of  standing 
timber  and  of  its  value  on  the  stump  must 
53 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

be  made,  as  well  as  of  the  cost  of  moving  it 
to  the  mill  or  to  the  railroad. 

The  Forest  Examiner  must  also  consider, 
in  many  cases,  the  building  of  logging  roads 
or  railroads,  timber  slides,  etc.,  and  must 
make  a  careful  study  of  the  material  into 
which  the  trees  to  be  cut  can  best  be  worked 
up,  and  of  the  value  of  such  material  in  the 
market.  Most  of  all,  however,  he  must 
study,  think  over,  and  decide  what  he  will 
recommend  as  to  the  conditions  which  are  to 
govern  the  logging  conditions  by  which  the 
protection  of  the  forest  is  to  be  insured. 
These  conditions,  fixed  by  his  superiors  upon 
the  report  of  the  Forest  Examiner,  deter- 
mine whether  an  individual  timber  sale  is 
forestry  or  forest  destruction.  This  is  the 
central  question  in  the  administration  of  the 
National  Forests  from  the  national  point  of 
view. 

The  principal  objects  of  the  conditions 

54 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

laid  down  for  a  timber  sale  are  always  the  re- 
production of  the  forest  and  its  safety 
against  fire.  Natural  reproduction  from 
self-sown  seed  is  almost  invariably  the  result 
desired ;  and  so  the  question  of  the  seed  trees 
to  be  left,  and  how  they  are  to  be  located  or 
spaced,  is  fundamental,  unless  there  is  ample 
young  growth  already  on  the  ground.  In 
the  latter  case  this  young  growth  must  not 
be  smashed  or  bent  by  throwing  the  older 
trees  on  top  of  it,  or  against  it,  and  the  young 
saplings  bent  down  by  the  felled  tops  must 
be  promptly  released. 

In  order  to  avoid  danger  to  the  young 
growth  already  present  or  to  be  secured,  as 
well  as  to  protect  the  older  trees  from  fires, 
the  slash  produced  in  lumbering,  the  tops 
lopped  from  the  trees  up  to  and  beyond  the 
highest  point  to  which  the  lumbermen  are 
required  to  take  the  logs,  must  be  satisfac- 
torily disposed  of — either  by  scattering  it 

55 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

thinly  over  the  ground,  by  piling  and  burn- 
ing, or  often  by  piling  alone. 

These  and  many  other  conditions  of  sale 
must  be  studied  out  in  a  form  adapted  to 
each  particular  case,  and  must  be  discussed 
with  the  men  who  propose  to  buy,  who  often 
have  wise  and  practical  suggestions  to  make. 

Similar  questions  on  a  less  important  scale 
present  themselves  and  must  be  answered 
in  the  matter  of  small  timber  sales,  and  of 
timber  given  without  charge  under  free-use 
permits  to  settlers  and  others. 

When  the  terms  of  a  contract  of  sale  have 
been  worked  out  and  accepted  and  the 
timber  has  been  sold,  then  the  Forest  Assist- 
ant has  charge  of  the  extremely  interesting 
task  of  marking  the  trees  that  are  to  be  cut, 
in  accordance  with  these  terms.  Usually 
this  is  done  by  marking  all  the  trees  which 
are  to  be  felled,  but  sometimes  by  marking 
only  the  trees  which  are  to  remain. 

56 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  marking  is  usually  done  by  blazing 
each  tree  and  stamping  the  letters  "  U.  S." 
upon  the  blaze  with  a  Government  marking 
axe  or  hatchet.  It  must  be  done  in  such  a 
way  that  the  loggers  will  have  no  excuse 
either  for  cutting  an  unmarked  tree  or  leav- 
ing a  marked  tree  uncut,  or  vice  versa,  as  the 
case  may  be.  The  marking  may  be  carried 
out  by  the  Rangers  and  Forest  Guards 
under  supervision  of  the  Forest  Assistant,  or 
in  difficult  situations  he  may  mark  or  direct 
the  marking  of  each  tree  himself.  Marking 
is  fascinating  work. 

Later,  while  the  logging  is  under  way,  the 
Forest  Examiner  will  often  inspect  it  to  see 
that  the  terms  of  the  sale  are  complied  with, 
that  the  trees  cut  are  thrown  in  places  where 
they  will  not  unduly  damage  either  young 
growth  or  the  larger  trees  which  are  to  re- 
main, and  that  the  other  conditions  laid 
down  for  the  logging  in  the  contract  of  sale 
57 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

are  observed.  The  scaling  of  the  logs  to 
determine  the  amount  of  payment  to  the 
Government  will  many  times  be  under  his 
supervision,  although  in  the  larger  sales  this 
work,  as  well  as  the  routine  inspection  of  the 
logging,  is  usually  carried  out  by  a  special 
body  of  expert  lumbermen,  who  often  bring 
to  it  a  much  wider  knowledge  of  the  woods 
than  the  men  in  actual  charge  of  the 
lumbering. 

In  nearly  every  National  Forest  there  are 
areas  upon  which  the  trees  have  been  de- 
stroyed by  fire.  ^lany  of  these  are  so  large 
or  so  remote  from  seed-bearing  trees  that 
natural  reproduction  will  not  suffice  to  re- 
place the  forest.  In  such  localities  planting 
is  needed,  and  for  that  purpose  the  Forest 
Examiner  must  establish  and  conduct  a 
forest  nursery.  The  decision  on  the  kind  of 
trees  to  plant  and  on  the  methods  of  raising 
and  planting  them,  the  collection  of  the  seed, 

58 


A    FOREST    EXAMINER    RUNNING    A    COMPASS    LINE 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  care  and  transplanting  of  the  young  trees 
until  they  are  set  out  on  the  site  of  the  future 
forest,  forms  a  task  of  absorbing  interest. 
Such  work  often  requires  a  high  degree  of 
technical  skill.  It  is  likely  to  occupy  a 
larger  and  larger  share  of  the  time  and 
attention  of  the  trained  men  of  the  Forest 
Service. 

The  Forest  Assistant's  or  Examiner's 
knowledge  of  surveying  makes  it  natural  for 
him  to  take  an  important  part  in  the  laying 
out  of  new  roads  and  trails  in  the  forest,  or 
in  correcting  the  lines  of  old  ones,  and  there 
is  little  work  more  immediately  useful.  The 
forest  can  be  safeguarded  effectively  just  in 
proportion  to  the  ease  with  which  all  parts 
of  it  can  be  reached.  Forest  protection  may 
be  less  technically  interesting  than  other 
parts  of  the  Forester's  work,  but  nothing 
that  he  does  is  more  important  or  pays 
larger  dividends  in  future  results. 

59 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

In  addition  to  his  studies  of  the  habits  and 
reproduction  of  the  different  trees  for  work- 
ing plans  or  timber  sales,  or  simply  to  in- 
crease his  knowledge  of  the  forest,  the  Forest 
Examiner  is  often  called  upon  to  lay  out 
sample  plots  for  ascertaining  the  exact 
relation  of  each  species  to  light,  heat,  and 
moisture,  or  for  studying  its  rate  of  growth. 
He  may  find  it  necessary  to  determine  the 
effect  of  the  grazing  of  cattle  or  sheep  on 
young  growth  of  various  species  and  of 
various  ages,  or  to  ascertain  their  relative 
resistance  to  fire.  In  general,  what  time  he 
can  spare  from  more  pressing  duties  is  very 
fully  occupied  with  adding  to  his  silvical 
knowledge  by  observation,  with  studies  of 
injurious  insects  or  fungi,  of  the  reasons  for 
the  increase  or  decrease  of  valuable  or  worth- 
less species  of  trees  in  the  forest,  the  in- 
numerable secondary  effects  of  forest  fires, 
the  causes  of  the  local  distribution  of  trees, 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

or  with  some  other  of  the  thousand  questions 
which  give  a  never-failing  interest  to  work 
in  the  woods. 

The  protection  of  a  valuable  kind  of  tree 
often  depends  upon  the  ability  to  find  a  use 
for,  and  therefore  to  remove,  a  less-valuable 
species  which  is  crowding  it  out,  for  as  yet 
the  American  Forester  can  do  very  little  cut- 
ting or  thinning  that  does  not  pay.  Just  so, 
the  protection  of  a  given  tract  against  fire 
may  depend  upon  the  ability  to  use,  and 
therefore  to  remove,  a  part  or  the  whole  of 
the  dead  and  down  timber  which  now  makes 
it  a  fire  trap.  For  such  reasons  as  these,  the 
uses  of  wood  and  the  markets  for  its  dis- 
posal form  exceedingly  important  branches 
of  study  for  the  Forest  Examiner,  who  will 
usually  find  that  his  duties  require  him  to  be 
thoroughly  familiar  with  them. 

It  is  more  and  more  common  to  find  each 
Forest  Officer — Ranger,  Forest  Examiner, 

61 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

or  Supervisor — combining  in  himself  the 
qualities  and  the  knowledge  required  to  fill 
any  or  all  of  the  other  positions.  The  pro- 
fessionally trained  man  who  develops 
marked  executive  ability  is  likely  to  become 
a  Supervisor,  just  as  a  Ranger,  with  the 
necessary  training  and  experience,  who  may 
wish  to  devote  himself  to  silvical  investiga- 
tions may  be  transferred  to  that  work.  The 
point  is  that  each  man  has  individual  oppor- 
tunity to  establish  and  occupy  the  place  for 
which  he  is  best  fitted. 

The  success  of  the  technical  Forester,  like 
that  of  the  Ranger,  and  indeed  of  nearly 
every  Government  Forest  Officer,  in  what- 
ever position  or  line  of  work,  will  very  fre- 
quently depend  on  liis  good  judgment  and 
practical  sense,  the  chief  ingredient  of  which 
will  always  be  his  knowledge  of  local  needs 
and  conditions,  and  his  sympathetic  under- 
standing of  the  local  point  of  view.     This 

62 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

does  not  mean  that  the  local  point  of  view 
is  always  to  control.  On  the  contrary,  the 
Forest  Officer  must  often  decide  against  it 
in  the  interest  of  the  welfare  of  the  larger 
public.  But  the  desires  and  demands  of  the 
users  of  the  forest  should  always  be  given 
the  fullest  hearing  and  the  most  careful  con- 
sideration. To  this  rule  there  is  no  excep- 
tion whatsoever. 


PERSONAL  EQUIPMENT 

Forestry  differs  from  most  professions 
in  this,  that  it  requires  as  much  vigor  of  body 
as  it  does  vigor  of  mind.  The  sort  of  man 
to  which  it  appeals,  and  which  it  seeks,  is  the 
man  with  high  powers  of  observation,  who 
does  not  shrink  from  responsibility,  and 
whose  mental  vigor  is  balanced  by  physical 
strength  and  hardiness.  The  man  who  takes 
up  forestry  should  be  little  interested  in  his 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

own  personal  comfort,  and  should  have  and 
conserve  endurance  enough  to  stand  severe 
physical  work  accompanied  by  mental  labor 
equally  exhausting. 

Foresters  are  still  few  in  numbers,  and 
the  point  of  view  which  they  represent,  while 
it  is  making  immense  strides  in  public  ac- 
ceptance, is  still  far  from  general  applica- 
tion. Therefore,  Foresters  are  still  mission- 
aries in  a  very  real  sense,  and  since  they*  are 
so  few,  it  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that 
they  should  stand  closely  together.  Differ- 
ences of  opinion  there  must  always  be  in  all 
professions,  but  there  is  no  other  profession 
in  which  it  is  more  important  to  keep  these 
differences  from  working  out  into  animosi- 
ties or  separations  of  any  kind.  We  are 
fortunate  above  all  in  this,  that  American 
Foresters  are  united  as  probably  the  mem- 
bers of  no  other  profession.  This  esprit  de 
corps  has  given  them  their  greatest  power  of 

64 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

achievement,  and  any  man  who  proposes  to 
enter  the  profession  should  do  so  with  this 
fact  clearly  in  mind. 

The  high  standard  which  the  profession  of 
forestry,  new  in  the  United  States,  has 
already  reached,  its  great  power  for  useful- 
ness to  the  Nation,  now  and  hereafter,  and 
the  large  responsibilities  which  fall  so  quickly 
on  the  men  who  are  trained  to  accept  it — 
all  these  things  give  to  the  profession  a  posi- 
tion and  dignity  which  it  should  be  the  first 
care  of  every  man  who  enters  it  to  maintain 
or  increase. 

To  stand  well  at  graduation  is  or  ought  to 
be  far  less  the  object  of  a  Forester's  train- 
ing than  to  stand  well  ten  or  twenty  years 
after  graduation.  It  is  of  the  first  import- 
ance that  the  training  should  be  thorough 
and  complete. 

A  friend  of  mine,  John  Muir,  says  that 
the  best  advice  he  can  give  young  men  is: 
5  65 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

"  Take  time  to  get  rich."  His  idea  of  get- 
ting rich  is  to  fill  his  mind  and  spirit  full  with 
observations  of  the  nature  he  so  deeply  loves 
and  so  well  understands ;  so  that  in  his  mind 
it  is  not  money  which  makes  riches,  but  life 
in  the  open  and  the  seeing  eye. 

Next  to  those  basic  traits  of  personal  char- 
acter, without  which  no  man  is  worth  his  salt, 
the  Forester's  most  important  quality  is  the 
power  of  observation,  the  power  to  note  and 
understand,  or  seek  to  understand,  what  he 
sees  in  the  forest.  It  is  just  as  essential  a 
part  of  the  Forester's  equipment  to  be  able 
to  see  what  is  wrong  with  a  piece  of  forest, 
and  what  is  required  for  its  improvement, 
as  it  is  necessary  for  a  physician  to  be  able 
to  diagnose  a  disease  and  to  prescribe  the 
remedy. 

Silvics,  which  may  be  said  to  be  the 
knowledge  of  how  trees  behave  in  health  and 
disease  toward  each  other,  and  toward  light, 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

heat,  moisture,  and  the  soil,  is  the  foundation 
of  forestry  and  the  Forester's  first  task  is  to 
bring  himself  to  a  high  point  of  efficiency  in 
observing  and  interpreting  these  facts  of  the 
forest,  and  to  keep  himself  there.  It  should 
be  as  hard  work  to  walk  tlii'ough  the  forest, 
and  see  what  is  there  to  be  seen,  as  to  wrestle 
with  the  most  difficult  problem  of  mathe- 
matics. No  man  can  be  a  good  Forester 
without  that  quality  of  observation  and 
understanding  which  the  French  call  "  the 
forester's  eye."  It  is  not  the  only  quality 
required  for  success  in  forestry,  but  it  is 
unquestionably  the  first. 

Perhaps  the  second  among  the  qualities 
necessary  for  the  Forester  is  common  sense, 
which  most  often  simply  means  a  sympa- 
thetic understanding  of  the  circumstances 
among  which  a  man  finds  himself.  The 
American  Forester  must  know  the  United 

States  and  understand  its  people.    Nothing 
67 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

which  affects  the  welfare  of  his  country 
should  be  indifferent  to  him.  Forestry  is  a 
form  of  practical  statesmanship  which 
touches  the  national  life  at  so  many  points 
that  no  Forester  can  safely  allow  himself  to 
remain  ignorant  of  the  needs  and  purposes 
of  his  fellow  citizens,  or  to  be  out  of  touch 
with  the  current  questions  of  the  day.  The 
best  citizen  makes  the  best  Forester,  and  no 
man  can  make  a  good  Forester  unless  he  is  a 
good  citizen  also. 

The  Forester  can  not  succeed  unless  he 
understands  the  problems  and  point  of  view 
of  his  country,  and  that  is  the  reason  why 
Foresters  from  other  lands  were  not  brought 
into  the  United  States  in  the  early  stages 
of  the  forest  movement.  At  that  time 
practically  no  American  Foresters  had  yet 
been  trained,  and  the  great  need  of  the  situa- 
tion was   for  men  to   do  the  immediately 

pressing  work.     Foresters  from  Germany, 
68 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

France,  Switzerland,  and  other  countries 
could  have  been  obtained  in  abundant 
numbers  and  at  reasonable  salaries.  They 
were  not  invited  to  come  because,  however 
well  trained  in  technical  forestry,  they  could 
not  have  understood  the  habits  of  thought  of 
our  people.  Therefore,  in  too  many  cases, 
they  would  have  failed  to  establish  the  kind 
of  practical  understanding  which  a  Forester 
must  have  with  the  men  who  use,  or  work  in, 
his  forest,  if  he  is  to  succeed.  It  was  wiser 
to  wait  until  Americans  could  be  trained,  for 
the  practising  Forester  must  handle  men  as 
well  as  trees. 

One  of  the  most  difficult  things  to  do  in 
any  profession  which  involves  drudgery 
(and  I  take  it  that  no  profession  which  does 
not  involve  drudgery  is  worth  the  attention 
of  a  man)  is  to  look  beyond  the  daily  routine 
to  the  things  which  that  routine  is  intended 
to  assist  in  ajccomplishing.     This  is  pecul- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

iarly  true  of  forestry,  in  which,  perhaps 
more  than  in  any  other  profession,  the  long- 
distance, far-sighted  attitude  of  mind  is 
essential  to  success.  The  trees  a  Forester 
plants  he  himself  will  seldom  live  to  harvest. 
Much  of  his  thought  about  his  forest  must 
be  in  terms  of  centuries.  The  great  object 
for  which  he  is  striving  of  necessity  can  not 
be  full}^  accomplished  during  his  lifetime. 
He  must,  therefore,  accustom  himself  to  look 
ahead,  and  to  reap  his  personal  satisfaction 
from  the  planned  and  orderly  development 
of  a  scheme  the  i^erfect  fruit  of  which  he  can 
never  hope  to  see. 

This  is  one  of  the  strongest  reasons  why 
the  Forester,  whether  in  public  or  private 
employment,  must  always  look  upon  himself 
as  a  public  servant.  It  is  of  the  first  im- 
portance that  he  should  accustom  himself  to 
think  of  the  results  of  his  work  as  affecting, 
not  primarily  himself,  but  others,  always 
70 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

including  the  general  public.  It  is  essential 
for  a  Forester  to  form  the  habit  of  looking 
far  ahead,  out  of  which  grows  a  sound  per- 
spective and  persistence  in  body  and  mind. 
One  of  the  greatest  football  players  of  our 
time  makes  the  distinction  between  a  player 
who  is  "  quick  "  and  a  player  who  is  "  soon." 
In  his  description,  the  "  quick  "  player  is  the 
man  who  waits  until  the  last  moment  and 
then  moves  with  nervous  and  desperate  haste 
in  the  little  time  he  has  left.  The  man  who 
is  *'  soon,"  however,  almost  invariably  ar- 
rives ahead  of  the  man  who  is  "  quick,"  be- 
cause he  has  thought  out  in  advance  exactly 
where  he  is  going  and  how  to  get  there,  and 
when  the  moment  comes  he  does  not  delay 
his  start,  makes  no  false  motions,  and 
thereby  makes  and  keeps  himself  efficient. 
Forestry  is  preeminently  a  profession  for 
the  "  soon  "  man,  for  it  is  the  steady  prep- 
aration long  in  advance,  the  well-thought- 
71 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

out  plan  well  stuck  to,  which  in  forestry 
brings  success. 

In  my  experience,  men  differ  compara- 
tively little  in  mere  ability,  in  the  quality  of 
the  mental  machine,  through  which  the  spirit 
works.  Nine  times  out  of  ten,  it  is  not  ability 
which  brings  success,  but  persistence  and 
enthusiasm,  which  are  usually,  but  not 
always,  the  same  as  vision  and  will.  We 
all  have  ability  enough  to  do  the  things 
which  lie  before  us,  but  the  man  with  the  will 
to  keep  everlastingly  at  it,  and  the  vision 
to  realize  the  meaning  and  value  of  the  re- 
sults for  which  he  is  striving,  is  the  man  who 
wins  in  nearly  every  case.  This  is  true  in  all 
human  aifairs,  but  it  is  peculiarly  true  of 
the  Forester  and  his  task,  the  end  of  which 
lies  so  far  ahead. 

In  a  class  below  me  at  Phillips-Exeter 
Academy  was  a  boy  who  had  just  entered 

the  school.    His  great  ambition  was  to  plaj?- 

72 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

football,  and  he  came  to  the  practise  day 
after  day.  His  abilities,  however,  were  ap- 
parently not  on  the  same  plane  with  his 
ambitions,  and  his  work  was  so  ridiculously 
poor  that  he  became  the  laughing  stock  of 
the  whole  school.  That,  however,  troubled 
him  not  at  all.  What  held  his  mind  was 
football.  Undiscouraged  and  undismayed, 
he  kept  on  playing  football  until  in  his  last 
year  he  became  captain  of  the  Exeter  foot- 
ball team. 

Every  man  of  experience  has  known  many 
similar  cases.  It  is  clear,  I  think,  that  the 
master  qualities  in  achievement  are  neither 
luck  nor  mere  ability,  but  rather  enthusiasm 
and  persistence,  or  vision  and  will. 

In  a  peculiar  sense  the  Forester  depends 
upon  public  opinion  and  public  support  for 
the  means  of  carrying  on  his  work,  and  for 
its  final  success.  But  the  attention  which 
the  public  gives  or  can  give  to  any  particu- 
73 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

lar  subject  varies,  and  of  necessity  must 
vary,  from  time  to  time.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances, it  is  inevitable  that  the  Forester 
must  meet  discouragements,  checks,  and  de- 
lays, as  well  as  periods  of  smooth  sailing. 
He  should  expect  them,  and  should  be  pre- 
pared to  discount  them  when  they  come. 
When  they  do  come,  I  know  of  no  better 
way  of  reducing  their  bad  effects  than  for  a 
man  to  make  allowance  for  his  own  state  of 
mind.  He  who  can  stand  off  and  look  at 
himself  impartially,  realizing  that  he  will  not 
feel  to-mon-ow  as  he  feels  to-day,  has  a 
powerful  weapon  against  the  temporary  dis- 
couragements which  are  necessarily  met  in 
any  work  that  is  really  worth  while.  Prog- 
ress is  always  in  spirals,  and  there  is  always 
a  good  time  coming.  There  is  nothing  so 
fatal  to  good  work  as  that  flabby  spirit  under 
which  some  weak  men  try  to  hide  their  in- 
efficiency— the  spirit  of  "  What's  the  use? " 

74 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

It  has  been  the  experience  of  every 
Forester,  as  he  goes  about  the  country,  to  be 
told  that  a  certain  mountain  is  impassable, 
that  a  certain  trail  can  not  be  travelled,  that 
a  certain  stream  can  not  be  crossed,  and  to 
find  that  mountain,  trail,  and  stream  can  all 
be  passed  with  little  serious  difficulty  by  a 
man  who  is  willing  to  try.  Most  things  said 
to  be  impossible  are  so  only  in  the  mind  of 
the  man  whose  timidity  or  inertness  keeps 
him  from  making  the  attempt.  The  whole 
story  of  the  establishment  and  growth  of  the 
United  States  Forest  Service  is  a  story  of 
the  doing  of  things  which  the  men  who  did 
them  were  warned  in  advance  would  be  im- 
possible. Usually  the  thing  which  "  can't 
be  done  "  is  well  worth  trying. 

Perhaps  I  ought  to  add  that  I  am  not  urg- 
ing the  young  Forester  to  disregard  local 
public  opinion  without  the  best  of  reasons, 
or  to  rush  his  horse  blindly  into  the  ford  of  a 
75 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

swollen  stream.  Good  sense  is  the  first  con- 
dition of  success.  I  am  merely  saying  that 
in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundi-ed,  when 
a  thing  ought  to  be  done  it  can  be  done,  if 
the  eiFort  is  made  with  that  idea  in  mind. 

All  this  is  but  one  way  of  saying  that  the 
Forester  should  be  his  own  severest  task- 
master. The  Forester  must  keep  himself  up 
to  his  own  work.  In  no  other  profession,  to 
my  knowledge,  is  a  man  thrown  so  com- 
pletely on  his  own  responsibility.  The 
Forester  often  leads  an  isolated  life  for 
weeks  or  months  at  a  time,  seeing  the  men 
under  whom  he  works  only  at  distant  inter- 
vals. Because  he  is  so  much  his  own  master, 
the  responsibility  which  rests  upon  him  is 
peculiarly  his  own,  and  must  be  met  out  of 
the  resources  within  himself. 

The  training  of  a  Forester  should  lead 
him  to  be  practical  in  the  right  sense  of  that 
word,  which  emphatically  is  not  the  sense  of 
76 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

abandoning  standards  of  work  or  conduct 
in  order  to  get  immediate  results.  The 
"  practical "  men  with  whom  the  Forester 
must  do  his  work — lumbermen,  cattlemen, 
sheepmen,  settlers,  forest  users  of  all  kinds 
— are  often  by  very  much  his  superiors  in 
usable  knowledge  of  the  details  of  their 
work.  Their  opinions  are  entitled  to  the 
most  complete  hearing  and  respect.  There 
is  no  other  class  of  men  from  whose  advice 
the  Forester  can  so  greatly  profit  if  he 
chooses  to  do  so.  He  is  superior  to  them, 
if  at  all,  only  in  his  technical  knowledge, 
and  in  the  broader  point  of  view  he  has  de- 
rived from  his  professional  training.  It  is 
of  the  first  importance  that  the  young 
Forester  should  know  these  men,  should 
learn  to  like  and  respect  them,  and  that  he 
should  get  all  the  help  he  can  from  their 
knowledge  and  practical  experience.  The 
willingness  to  use  the  information  and 
77 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

assistance  which  such  men  were  ready  to 
give  has  more  than  once  meant  the  differ- 
ence between  failure  and  success. 

The  young  Forester,  like  other  young 
men,  is  likely  to  be  impatient.  I  do  not 
blame  him  for  it.  Rightly  directed,  his  im- 
patience may  become  one  of  his  best  assets. 
But  it  will  do  no  harm  to  remember,  also, 
that  the  human  race  has  reached  its  present 
degree  of  civilization  and  advancement  only 
step  by  step,  and  that  it  seems  likely  to  pro- 
ceed in  very  much  the  same  way  hereafter. 
As  a  general  rule,  results  slowly  and  pain- 
fully accomplished  are  lasting.  The  results 
to  be  achieved  in  forestry  must  be  lasting  if 
they  are  to  be  valuable. 

In  general,  the  men  with  whom  the 
Forester  deals  can  adopt,  and  in  many 
cases,  ought  to  adopt,  a  new  point  of  view 
but  slowly.  To  fall  in  love  at  first  sight 
with  theories  or  policies  is  as  rare  as  the 

78 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

same  experience  is  between  persons.  As  a 
rule,  an  intellectual  conviction,  however  well 
founded,  must  be  followed  by  a  period  of 
incubation  and  growth  before  it  can  blossom 
into  a  definite  principle  of  action,  before  the 
man  who  holds  it  is  ready  to  work  or  fight 
in  order  to  carry  it  out.  There  is  a  rate  in 
the  adoption  of  new  ideas  beyond  which 
only  the  most  unusual  circumstances  will  in- 
duce men's  minds  to  move.  Forestry  has 
gone  ahead  in  the  United  States  faster  than 
it  ever  did  in  any  other  land.  If  it  proceeds 
a  little  less  rapidly,  now  that  so  much  of  the 
field  has  been  won,  there  will  be  no  reason 
for  discouragement  in  that. 


As   A    SUBORDINATE   OFFICER 

Necessarily  the  young  Forester  will  begin 
as  a  subordinate.    How  soon  he  will  come  to 
give  orders  of  his  own  will  depend  on  how 
79 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

well  he  executes  the  orders  of  his  superior. 
In  particular,  it  will  depend  on  whether  he 
requires  to  be  coddled  in  doing  his  work,  or 
whether  he  is  willing  and  able  to  stand  on  his 
own  feet.  The  man  for  whom  every  em- 
ployer of  men  is  searching,  everywhere  and 
always,  is  the  man  who  will  accept  the  re- 
sponsibility for  the  work  he  has  to  do — who 
will  not  lean  at  every  point  upon  his  superior 
for  additional  instructions,  advice,  or  en- 
couragement. 

There  is  no  more  valuable  subordinate 
than  the  man  to  whom  you  can  give  a  piece 
of  work  and  then  forget  about  it,  in  the  con- 
fident expectation  that  the  next  time  it  is 
brought  to  your  attention  it  will  come  in  the 
form  of  a  report  that  the  thing  has  been 
done.  When  this  master  quality  is  joined  to 
executive  power,  loyalty,  and  common  sense, 
the  result  is  a  man  whom  you  can  trust.  On 
the  other  hand,  there  is  no  greater  nuisance 

80 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

to  a  man  heavily  burdened  with  the  direc- 
tion of  affairs  tlian  the  weak-backed  assist- 
ant who  is  continually  trying  to  get  his  chief 
to  do  his  work  for  him,  on  the  feeble  plea 
that  he  thought  the  chief  would  like  to  de- 
cide this  or  that  himself.  The  man  to  whom 
an  executive  is  most  grateful,  the  man  whom 
he  will  work  hardest  and  value  most,  is  the 
man  who  accepts  responsibility  willingly, 
and  is  not  continually  under  his  feet. 

AS  A  SUPERIOR  OFFICER 

The  principles  of  effective  administrative 
work  have  never,  so  far  as  I  know,  been 
adequately  classified  and  defined.  When 
they  come  to  be  stated  one  of  the  most  im- 
portant will  be  found  to  be  the  exact  assign- 
ment of  responsibility,  so  that  whatever  goes 
wrong  the  administrative  head  will  know 
clearly  and  at  once  upon  whom  the  responsi- 
bility falls.  This  is  one  of  the  reasons  why, 
81 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

as  a  (rule,  boards  and  commissions  are  far  less 
effective  in  getting  things  done  than  single 
men  with  clear-cut  authority  and  equally- 
clear-cut  responsibility.  Another  principle, 
so  well  known  that  it  has  almost  become  a 
proverb,  is  to  delegate  everything  you  can, 
to  do  nothing  that  you  can  get  someone  else 
to  do  for  you.  But  the  wisdom  of  letting 
a  good  man  alone  is  less  commonly  under- 
stood. It  is  sometimes  as  important  for  the 
superior  officer  not  to  worry  his  subordi- 
nate with  useless  orders  as  it  is  for  the  sub- 
ordinate not  to  harass  his  superior  with  use- 
less questions. 

Let  a  good  man  alone.  Give  him  his  head. 
Nothing  will  hold  him  so  rigidly  to  his  work 
as  the  feeling  that  he  is  trusted.  Lead  your 
men  in  their  work,  and  above  all  make  of 
your  organization  not  a  monarchy,  limited 
or  unlimited,  but  a  democracy,  in  which  the 
responsibility  of  each  man  for  a  particular 

82 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

piece  of  work  shall  not  only  be  defined  but 
recognized,  in  which  the  credit  for  each  man's 
work,  so  far  as  possible,  shall  be  attached 
to  his  own  name,  in  which  the  opinions  and 
advice  of  your  subordinates  are  often  sought 
before  decisions  are  made;  in  a  word,  a 
democracy  in  which  each  man  feels  a  per- 
sonal responsibility  for  the  success  of  the 
whole  enterprise. 

The  young  Forester  may  be  years  re- 
moved from  the  chance  to  apply  these  princi- 
ples in  practice,  but  since  no  superior  officer 
can  put  them  into  fruitful  effect  without  the 
cooperation  of  his  subordinates,  it  is  well 
that  they  should  be  known  at  both  ends  of 
the  line. 

A  PUBLIC  SERVANT 

I  repeat  that  whether  a  Forester  is  en- 
gaged in  private  work  or  in  public  work, 
whether  he  is  employed  by  a  lumberman,  an 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

association  of  lumbermen,  a  fishing  and 
shooting  club,  the  owner  of  a  great  estate,  or 
whether  he  is  an  officer  of  a  State  or  of  the 
Nation,  by  virtue  of  his  profession  he  is  a 
public  servant.  Because  he  deals  with  the 
forest,  he  has  his  hand  upon  the  future  wel- 
fare of  his  countrj^  His  point  of  view  is  that 
which  must  control  its  future  welfare.  He 
represents  the  planned  and  orderly  develop- 
ment of  its  resources.  He  is  the  representa- 
tive also  of  the  forest  school  from  which  he 
graduates,  and  of  his  profession.  Upon  the 
standards  which  he  helps  to  establish  and 
maintain,  the  welfare  of  these,  too,  directly 
depends. 


STATE  FOREST  WORK 

The  work  of  the  States  in  forestry  is  still 
in  the  pioneer  stage,  and  the  work  of  a  State 
Forester  must  still  bear  largely  on  the  crea- 
84 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

tion  of  a  right  public  sentiment  in  forest 
matters.  In  State  forestry  the  need  for 
agitation  has  by  no  means  passed.  It  is 
often  the  duty  of  the  State  Forester  to  pre- 
pare or  endeavor  to  secure  the  passage  of 
good  State  forest  laws,  or  to  interpose 
against  the  enactment  of  bad  laws.  In 
particular,  much  of  his  time  is  likely  to  be 
given  to  legislation  upon  the  subjects  of 
forest  fires  and  forest  taxation.  Upon  the 
latter  there  is  as  yet  no  sound  and  effective 
public  opinion  in  many  parts  of  the  United 
States,  and  legislatures  and  people  still  do 
not  understand  how  powerful  bad  methods 
of  forest  taxation  have  been  and  still  are  in 
forcing  the  destructive  cutting  of  timber  by 
making  it  impossible  to  wait  for  the  better 
methods  of  lumbering  which  accompany  a 
better  market.  I  have  known  the  taxes  on 
standing  timber  to  equal  six  per  cent,  a  year 
on  the  reasonable  value  of  the  stumpage. 

85 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Thirteen  States  have  State  Forests  with  a 
total  area  altogether  of  3,400,000  acres.  Of 
these  New  York  has  the  largest  area.  Its 
State  Forests  cover  1,645,000  acres,  partly 
in  the  Adirondacks  and  partly  in  the  Cats- 
kills;  Pennsylvania  comes  next  with  nine 
hundred  and  eighty- four  thousand  acres; 
and  Wisconsin  third,  with  about  four 
hundred  thousand  acres. 

Twenty-nine  States  make  appropriations 
for  forest  work.  Excluding  special  appro- 
priations for  courses  in  forestry  at  universi- 
ties, colleges,  and  schools,  the  total  amount 
spent  for  this  purpose  is  about  $1,340,000. 
Pennsylvania  has  the  largest  appropriation, 
— three  hundred  and  twenty-eight  thousand 
dollars,  in  addition  to  which  a  special  appro- 
priation of  two  hundred  and  seventy-five 
thousand  dollars  has  been  devoted  to 
checking  the  chestnut  blight.  Minnesota 
comes  second  with  two  hundred  and  thirty- 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

three  thousand  dollars;  New  York  third  with 
about  one  hundred  and  sixty-five  thousand 
dollars,  and  Wisconsin  next  with  ninety-five 
thousand  dollars. 

Thirty-three  States  have  State  forest 
ofiicers,  of  whom  fifteen  are  State  Foresters 
by  title,  while  the  majority  of  the  remainder 
perform  duties  of  a  very  similar  nature. 

Eleven  States  are  receiving  assistance 
from  the  Federal  Government  under  the 
Weeks  law,  which  authorizes  cooperation 
for  fire  protection,  provided  the  State  will 
furnish  a  sum  equal  to  that  allotted  to  it 
from  the  National  fund,  with  a  limit  of  ten 
thousand  dollars  to  a  single  State. 

For  purposes  of  reforestation,  ten  States 
maintain  forest  nurseries.  During  the  year 
1912  they  produced  in  round  numbers 
twenty  million  young  trees,  of  which  four- 
teen million  were  distributed  to  the  citizens 
of  these  ten  States. 

87 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

In  some  States  the  waterpower  question 
falls  within  the  sphere  of  the  State  Forester, 
as  well  as  other  similar  Conservation  mat- 
ters, while  it  has  usually  been  made  his  duty 
to  assist  private  timberland  owners  in  the 
handling  of  their  holdings,  whether  these 
be  the  larger  holdings  of  lumber  companies 
or  the  farmers'  woodlots.  In  many  States 
the  State  Forester  is  made  responsible  for 
the  enforcement  of  the  State  forest  fire  laws, 
and  for  the  control  and  management  of  a 
body  of  State  fire  wardens,  who  may  or  may 
not  be  permanently  employed  in  that  work. 
The  enforcement  of  laws  which  exempt 
timberlands  or  lands  planted  to  timber  from 
taxation,  or  limit  the  taxation  upon  them, 
are  also  usually  under  his  supervision. 

The  work  of  forestry  in  the  various 
States  being  on  the  whole  much  less  ad- 
vanced than  it  is  in  the  Nation,  the  State 
Forester  must  still  occupy  himself  largely 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

with  those  preliminary  phases  of  the  work 
of  forestry  through  which  the  National 
Forest  Service  has  already  passed.  Much 
progress,  however,  is  being  made,  and  we 
may  fairly  count  not  only  that  State  forest 
organizations  will  ultimately  exist  in  every 
State,  but  that  the  State  Foresters  will  exert 
a  steadily  increasing  influence  on  forest  per- 
petuation in  the  United  States. 


THE  FOREST  SERVICE  IN 
WASHINGTON 

A  DESCRIPTION  of  what  a  Forester  has  to 
do  which  did  not  include  the  work  of  the 
Government  Foresters  at  the  National  Capi- 
tal would  necessarily  be  incomplete.  The 
following  outline  may,  therefore,  help  to 
round  out  the  picture. 

The  Washington  headquarters  of  the 
Forest  Service  are  directly  in  charge  of  the 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forester  and  his  immediate  assistants.  The 
Forester  has  general  supervision  of  the 
whole  Service.  It  is  he  who,  with  the  ap- 
proval of  the  Secretary  of  Agriculture, 
determines  the  general  policy  which  is  to 
govern  the  Service  in  the  very  various  and 
numerous  matters  with  which  it  has  to  deal. 
He  keeps  his  hand  upon  the  whole  ma- 
chinery of  the  Service,  holds  it  up  to  its 
work,  and  in  general  is  responsible  for 
supplying  it  with  the  right  spirit  and  point 
of  view,  without  which  any  kind  of  efficiency 
is  impossible. 

The  Forester  prepares  the  estiinates,  or 
annual  budget,  for  the  expenditures  of  the 
Service,  and  appears  before  Committees  of 
Congress  to  explain  the  need  for  money,  and 
otherwise  to  set  forth  or  defend  the  work 
upon  which  the  Service  is  engaged.  His 
immediate  subordinates  spend  a  large  part 
of  their  time  in  the  field  inspecting  the  work 

90 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  the  Service  and  keeping  its  tone  high. 
Their  reports  to  the  Forester  keep  him 
thoroughly  advised  as  to  the  situation  on 
all  the  National  Forests,  so  that  he  may 
wisely  meet  each  question  as  it  comes  up,  and 
adjust  the  regulations  and  routine  business 
methods  of  the  Service  to  the  constantly 
changing  needs  of  the  people  with  whom  it 
deals. 

Being  responsible  for  the  personnel  of  the 
Forest  Service,  the  Forester  recommends  to 
the  Secretary  of  Agriculture,  by  whom  the 
actual  papers  are  issued,  all  appointments  to 
it,  as  well  as  promotions,  reductions,  and  dis- 
missals. Under  his  immediate  eye  also  is 
the  very  important  and  necessary  work  of 
making  public  the  information  collected  by 
the  Service  for  the  use  of  the  people.  Since 
1900,  370  publications  of  the  Service  have 
been  issued,  with  a  total  circulation  of 
11,198,000  copies. 

91 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  publications  of  the  United  States 
Forest  Service  include  by  far  the  most  and 
the  best  information  upon  the  forests  of  this 
country  which  has  until  now  been  assembled 
and  printed.  Hence,  the  prospective  stu- 
dent of  forestry  can  do  nothing  better  than 
to  write  to  The  Forester,  Washington,  D.  C. 
(which  is  the  correct  address),  for  the 
annotated  catalogue  of  these  publications 
which  is  sent  free  to  all  applicants,  and  then 
to  secure  and  study  such  of  the  bulletins  and 
circulars  as  best  meet  his  individual  needs. 
If  he  looks  forward  to  entering  the  United 
States  Forest  Service,  he  should  not  fail  to 
get  also  the  Use  Book,  the  volume  of  direc- 
tions and  regulations  in  accordance  with 
which  the  National  Forests  are  protected, 
developed,  and  made  available  and  useful 
to  the  people  of  the  regions  in  which  they  lie. 

The  dendrological  work  of  the  Service, 
which  has  to  do  with  forest  distribution,  the 

92 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

identification  of  tree  species  and  other  forest 
botanical  work,  is  also  under  the  immediate 
supervision  of  the  Forester,  and  the  Chief 
Lumberman  reports  directly  to  him. 

In  addition  to  the  work  which  falls  imme- 
diately under  the  eye  of  the  Forester,  and 
which  used  to,  but  does  not  now,  include  the 
legal  work  necessary  to  support  and  pro- 
mote the  operations  of  the  Service,  there  are 
seven  principal  parts,  or  branches,  in  the 
work  of  the  Washington  headquarters.  The 
first  of  these  is  the  Branch  of  Accounts, 
whose  work  I  need  not  describe  further  than 
to  say  that  the  Service  has  always  owed  a 
very  large  part  of  its  safety  against  the  bitter 
attacks  of  its  enemies  to  the  accuracy,  com- 
pleteness, and  general  high  quality  of  its 
accounting  system. 

The  second  branch,  that  of  Operation,  has 
charge  of  the  business  administration  both  of 
the  National  Forests  and  of  the  other  work 

93 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  the  Forest  Service.  Here  the  business 
methods  which  are  necessary  to  keep  the 
organization  at  a  high  state  of  efficiency  are 
formulated,  put  in  practice,  and  constantly 
revised,  for  it  is  only  by  such  revision  that 
they  can  be  kept,  as  they  are  kept,  at  a 
level  with  the  very  best  practice  of  the  best 
modern  business.  There  are  very  few 
Government  bureaus  of  which  this  can  be 
said.  The  Branch  of  Operation  is  respon- 
sible for  the  adoption  and  enforcement  of 
labor-saving  devices  in  correspondence,  in 
handling  requisitions,  and  in  the  filing  and 
care  of  papers  generally,  and  for  the  supply 
of  stationery,  tools,  and  instruments,  and 
the  renting  of  quarters, — in  a  word,  for  the 
whole  of  the  more  or  less  routine  transaction 
of  business  which  is  essential  to  keep  so  large 
an  organization  at  the  highest  point  of 
efficiency. 

The  office  work  needed  in  the  mapping  of 

94 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  National  Forests,  with  all  their  resources, 
boundaries,  and  interior  holdings,  is  in 
charge  of  the  Branch  of  Operation.  So  is 
the  immense  amount  of  drafting  which  is 
necessary  in  the  other  work  of  the"  Service, 
and  the  photographic  laboratory  in  which 
maps  are  reproduced  and  where  permanent 
photographic  records  of  the  condition  of  the 
forest  are  made. 

The  third  branch,  that  of  Silviculture,  is 
the  most  important  of  all.  It  has  oversight 
of  the  practice  of  forestry  on  all  the  National 
Forests,  and  of  all  scientific  forest  studies 
in  the  National  Forests  and  outside.  It  is 
here  that  the  conditions  in  the  contracts 
under  which  the  larger  timber  sales  are  made 
are  finally  examined  and  approved,  and  here 
are  found  the  inspectors  whose  duty  it  is  not 
only  to  see  that  the  work  is  well  done,  but 
to  labor  constantly  for  improvements  in 
methods  as  well  as  in  results.  Here  centres 
95 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  preparation  of  forest  working  plans,  and 
the  knowledge  of  lumber  and  the  lumber 
markets. 

The  Branch  of  Silviculture  has  charge  also 
of  National  cooperation  for  the  advance- 
ment of  forestry  with  the  several  States,  and 
in  particular  for  fire  protection  under  the 
Weeks  law.  This  form  of  cooperation  has 
made  the  knowledge  and  equipment  of  the 
Forest  Service  available  for  the  study  of 
State  forest  resources  and  forest  problems, 
and  much  of  the  progress  in  forestry  made 
by  the  States  is  directly  due  to  it. 

Under  the  Branch  of  Silviculture,  the 
Office  of  Forest  Investigations  brings  to- 
gether all  that  is  known  of  the  nature  and 
growth  of  trees  in  this  country,  and  to  some 
extent  in  other  countries  also,  conducts  inde- 
pendent studies  of  the  greatest  value  in  de- 
veloping better  methods  of  securing  the 
reproduction  of  important  forest  trees,  and 

96 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

computes  the  enormous  number  of  forest 
measurements  dealing  with  the  stand  and 
the  rate  of  growth  of  trees  and  forests  that 
are  turned  in  by  the  parties  engaged  in 
forest  investigation  in  the  field.  Under  the 
Office  of  Forest  Investigations,  studies  in 
forest  distribution  and  in  the  structure  of 
wood  are  carried  on,  and  it  includes  the 
Library  of  the  Forest  Service,  by  far  the 
most  complete  and  effective  forest  library 
in  the  United  States. 

The  fourth  branch,  that  of  Grazing,  super- 
vises the  use  of  the  National  Forests  for 
pasture.  Over  the  greater  part  of  the  West, 
this  was  the  first  use  to  which  the  forests 
were  put,  and  an  idea  of  its  magnitude  may 
be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  every  yeai* 
the  National  Forests  supply  feed  for  about 
a  million  and  a  half  cattle  and  horses,  and 
more  than  fourteen  million  sheep.  It  is  no 
easy  task  to  permit  all  this  live  stock  to 
7  97 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

utilize  the  forage  which  the  National  Forests 
produce,  and  yet  do  little  or  no  harm  to  the 
young  growth  on  which  the  future  of  the 
forest  depends.  To  exclude  the  grazing 
animals  altogether  is  impossible  and  unde- 
sirable, for  to  do  so  would  ruin  the  leading 
industry  in  many  portions  of  the  West. 
Consequently,  many  of  the  most  difficult  and 
perplexing  questions  in  the  practical  ad- 
ministration of  the  National  Forests  have 
occurred  in  the  work  of  the  Branch  of 
Grazing,  and  have  there  been  solved,  and 
many  of  the  most  bitter  attacks  upon  it  have 
there  been  met. 

The  fifth  branch,  that  of  Lands,  has  to  do 
with  the  questions  which  arise  from  the  use 
of  the  land  in  the  National  Forests  for 
farming  or  ranching,  mining,  and  a  very 
wide  variety  of  other  purposes,  and  with  the 
exceedingly  numerous  and  intricate  ques- 
tions wliich  arise  because  there  are  about 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

21,100,000  acres  of  land  within  the  boundar- 
ies of  the  National  Forests  whose  title  has 
already  passed  from  the  Government.  The 
boundaries  of  the  National  Forests  also  are 
constantly  being  examined  to  determine 
whether  they  include  all  the  land,  and  only 
the  land,  to  be  contained  within  them,  and 
whether  they  should  be  extended  or  reduced. 
The  first  permits  for  the  use  of  water- 
power  sites  on  Government  land  were  issued 
by  the  Forest  Service,  and  the  policy  which 
is  just  being  adopted  by  the  Interior  De- 
partment and  other  Government  organiza- 
tions in  their  handling  of  waterpower 
questions  was  there  first  developed.  These 
permits  are  prepared  in  the  Branch  of 
Lands.  The  first  steps  toward  deterring 
men  who  attempt  in  defiance  of  the  law  to 
get  possession  of  lands  claimed  to  be  agri- 
cultural or  mineral  within  the  National 
Forests  are  taken  here,  but  the  final  decision 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

on  these  points  rests  with  the  Department 
of  the  Interior.  The  examination  of  lands 
to  determine  whether  they  are  agricultural 
in  character,  and  therefore  should  be  opened 
to  settlement,  is  directed  from  this  Branch. 

The  uses  to  which  National  Forest  lands 
are  put  are  almost  unbelievably  various. 
Barns,  borrow  pits,  botanical  gardens,  ceme- 
teries and  churches,  dairies  and  dipping  vats, 
fox  ranches  and  fish  hatcheries,  hotels, 
pastures,  pipe  lines,  power  sites,  residences, 
sanitaria  and  school-houses,  stores  and 
tunnels,  these  and  many  others  make  up, 
with  grazing  and  timber  sales,  the  uses  of  the 
National  Forests,  for  which  already  more 
than  half  a  million  permits  have  been  issued. 
This  work  also  falls  to  the  Branch  of  Lands. 

The  sixth  branch,  that  of  Forest  Products, 
is  concerned  with  the  whole  question  of  the 
uses  of  wood  and  other  materials  produced 
by  the  forest.     Its  principal  work  is  con- 

100 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ducted  through  the  Forest  Products  Labora- 
tory, in  cooperation  with  the  University  of 
Wisconsin  at  Madison.  Here  timber  is 
tested  to  ascertain  its  strength,  the  products 
of  wood  distillation  are  investigated,  wood 
pulp  and  paper  studies  of  large  reach  are 
carried  on,  the  methods  of  wood  preservation 
and  the  results  of  applying  them  are  in  con- 
stant course  of  being  examined,  and  the 
diseases  of  trees  and  of  wood  are  studied  in 
cooperation  with  the  Bureau  of  Plant  In- 
dustry of  the  United  States  Department  of 
Agriculture.  The  consumption  of  wood, 
and  the  production  of  lumber  and  forest 
products,  are  also  the  subject  of  continuous 
investigation,  and  various  necessary  special 
studies  are  undertaken  from  time  to  time. 
At  the  moment,  an  effort  is  under  way  to 
find  new  uses  and  new  markets  for  wood 
killed  by  the  chestnut  blight  in  the  north- 
eastern United  States. 

101 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  seventh  branch  has  to  do  with  the 
study,  selection,  and  acquisition  of  lands 
under  the  Weeks  law,  in  accordance  with 
which  eight  million  dollars  was  appropriated 
for  the  purchase  of  forest  lands  valuable  for 
stream  protection,  with  particular  reference 
to  the  Southern  Appalachians  and  the  White 
Mountains  of  New  England.  The  examina- 
tion of  the  amount  of  merchantable  timber 
on  lands  under  consideration  for  purchase, 
the  study  of  the  character  of  the  land  and 
the  forest,  and  the  survey  of  the  land  keep 
a  numerous  body  of  young  men  very  fully 
occupied.  Their  task  is  to  see  that  none  but 
the  right  land  is  recommended  for  acquisi- 
tion by  the  Government,  that  the  nature  and 
value  of  the  lands  selected  shall  be  most 
thoroughly  known,  and  that  the  constant 
effort  to  make  the  Government  pay  unrea- 
sonable prices  or  purchase  under  unfavorable 
conditions  shall  as  constantly  be  defeated. 

102 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  same  branch  takes  charge  of  the  lands 
as  soon  as  they  have  been  acquired. 

The  foregoing  description  of  the  work 
which  is  done  in  Washington  by  the  Forest 
Service  may  help  to  make  clear  the  great 
variety  of  tasks  to  which  a  Forester  may  be 
required  to  set  his  hand,  and  emphasizes  the 
need  of  a  broad  training  not  strictly  con- 
fined to  purely  technical  lines.  It  would  be 
defective  as  a  description,  however,  and 
would  fail  to  show  the  spirit  in  which  the 
work  is  done,  if  no  mention  were  made  of 
the  Service  Meeting,  at  which  the  responsi- 
ble heads  of  each  branch  and  of  the  work  of 
the  Forester's  office  meet  once  a  week  to  dis- 
cuss every  problem  which  confronts  the  Ser- 
vice and  every  phase  of  its  work.  This  meet- 
ing is  the  centre  where  all  parts  of  the  work 
of  the  Service  come  together  and  arrange 
their  mutual  cooperation,  and  it  is  also  the 
spring  from  which  the  essential  democracy 

103 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  the  organization  takes  its  rise.  The  Ser- 
vice Meeting  is  the  best  thing  in  the  Forest 
Service,  and  that  is  saying  a  great  deal. 

It  must  not  be  imagined  that  the  main- 
tenance of  Foresf  Service  headquarters  in 
Washington  indicates  that  the  actual  busi- 
ness of  handling  the  National  Forests  is 
carried  on  at  long  range.  In  order  to  avoid 
any  such  possibility  the  six  District  offices 
were  organized  in  1908.  These  are  situated 
at  Missoula,  Denver,  Albuquerque,  Port- 
land, Ogden,  and  San  Francisco.  Each  of 
the  District  offices  is  in  charge  of  a  District 
Forester,  who  directs  the  practical  carrying 
out  of  the  policies  finally  determined  upon  in 
Washington,  after  consultation  with  the 
men  in  the  field.  The  execution  of  all  the 
work,  the  larger  features  of  which  the  Wash- 
ington office  decides  and  directs  (and  the  de- 
tails of  which  it  inspects ) ,  is  the  task  of  the 
District  Forester.    The  District  Forester's 

104 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

office  is  necessarily  organized  much  on  the 
same  general  lines  as  the  Washington  head- 
quarters. Thus,  the  subjects  of  accounts, 
operation,  silviculture,  grazing,  lands,  and 
forest  products  are  all  represented  in  the 
District  offices.  In  addition,  a  legal  officer 
is  necessarily  attached  to  each  District  office, 
and  each  District  Forester  has  in  his  Dis- 
trict one  or  more  forest  experiment  stations, 
employed  mainly  in  studying  questions  of 
growth  and  reproduction;  and  three  forest 
insect  field  stations,  maintained  in  coopera- 
tion with  the  Bureau  of  Entomology,  are 
divided  among  the  six  Districts. 

While  the  work  of  the  Washington  office 
is  mainly  that  of  guiding  the  work  of  the 
National  Forests  along  broad  general  lines, 
through  instructions  to  the  District  Forest- 
ers, the  office  of  each  District  Forester  deals 
directly  with  the  Forest  Supervisors,  and  so 
with  the  handling  of  the  National  Forests. 

105 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

A  multitude  of  questions  which  the  Super- 
visors can  not  answer  are  decided  in  the 
District  office  instead,  as  was  formerly  the 
case,  of  being  forwarded  to  Washington  for 
disposal  there,  with  the  consequent  aggrava- 
ting and  needless  delay.  The  establishment 
of  the  District  offices  has  made  the  handling 
of  the  National  Forests  far  less  complicated 
and  far  more  prompt,  and  has  brought  it  far 
closer  than  ever  before  to  the  actual  users, 
— that  is,  has  made  it  far  more  quickly  and 
accurately  responsive  to  their  needs. 


PRIVATE  FORESTRY 

As  yet,  the  practice  of  forestry  by  private 
owners,  except  for  fire  protection,  has  made 
but  little  progress  in  the  United  States,  al- 
though without  doubt  it  will  be  widely  ex- 
tended during  the  next  ten  or  fifteen  years. 
The  concentration  of  timberland  ownership 

106 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

in  the  United  States  has  put  a  few  men  in 
control  of  vast  areas  of  forest.  Many  of 
them  are  anxious  to  prevent  forest  destruc- 
tion, so  far  as  that  may  be  practicable  with- 
out interfering  with  their  profits,  and  for 
that  purpose  Foresters  are  beginning  to  be 
employed.  Until  now  the  principal  tasks 
of  Foresters  employed  by  lumbermen  have 
been  the  measurement  of  the  amount  of 
lumber  in  the  standing  crop  of  trees,  and  the 
protection  of  forest  lands  from  fire.  Here 
and  there  the  practice  of  a  certain  amount 
of  forestry  has  been  added,  but  this  part  of 
the  work  of  the  private  Forester  employed 
by  lumbermen  has  not  been  important.  It 
is  likely,  however,  to  increase  with  some 
rapidity  before  long.  In  the  meantime,  the 
private  Forester  must  usually  be  willing  to 
accept  a  good  many  limitations  on  the  techni- 
cal side  of  his  work. 

It  is  essential  for  the  Forester  thus  em- 
107 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ployed  to  have  or  promptly  to  acquire  a 
knowledge  of  practical  lumbering,  that  is,  of 
logging,  milling,  and  markets,  and  for  the 
forest  student  who  expects  to  enter  this 
work  to  give  special  attention  to  these 
subjects. 

Already  about  170  graduates  of  forest 
schools  are  in  private  employ,  a  considerable 
proportion  of  which  number  are  employed 
by  large  lumbermen. 

The  time  is  undoubtedly  coming,  and  I 
hope  it  may  come  soon,  when  forest  destruc- 
tion will  be  legally  recognized  as  hostile  to 
the  public  welfare,  and  when  lumbermen  will 
be  compelled  by  law  to  handle  their  forests 
so  a^  to  insure  the  reproduction  of  them 
imder  reasonable  conditions  and  within  a 
reasonable  time.  The  idea  is  neither 
tjo-annical  nor  new.  In  democratic  Switzer- 
land, private  owners  of  timberland  are  re- 
strained by  law  from  destroying  the  forests 

108 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

upon  which  the  welfare  of  that  mountain 
region  so  largely  depends,  and  if  they  dis- 
obey, their  forest  lands  are  replanted  by  the 
Government  at  the  owners'  expense. 

Another  opening  for  Foresters  in  the  em- 
ploy of  lumbermen  is  through  the  forest 
fire  protective  associations.  Of  these,  two 
stand  out  most  conspicuously  at  the  present 
time,  one  the  Northwestern  Conservation 
and  Forestry  Association,  the  other  the 
Oregon  Forest  Fire  Association.  Each  has 
as  its  executive  officer  a  trained  Forester 
whose  knowledge  of  the  woods  not  only 
makes  him  exceedingly  useful  to  his  em- 
ployers, but  also,  when  combined  with  the 
Forester's  point  of  view,  enables  him  to  be 
of  great  value  in  protecting  the  general 
interest  in  the  forest. 

The  object  and  methods  of  one  of  the 
associations  is  described  by  its  Secretary  as 
follows : 

109 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

"  A  field  hitherto  narrow  but  continually 
broadening,  and  offering  much  opportunity 
for  those  with  peculiar  qualifications,  is  the 
management  of  the  cooperative  forest  work 
carried  on  by  timber  owners  in  many  locali- 
ties, often  jointly  with  State  and  Govern- 
ment. This  movement  originated  in  the 
Pacific  Northwest,  where  it  still  has  the  high- 
est development,  but  is  extending  to  the 
Lake  States,  New  England,  and  Canada. 

"  As  a  rule  the  primary  object  of  these 
cooperative  associations  is  fire  prevention 
and  their  local  managers  must  have  demon- 
strated ability  to  organize  eff'ective  patrol 
systems,  build  telephone  lines,  apply  every 
ingenuity  to  supplying  and  equipping  their 
forces,  and,  above  all,  to  handle  men  in 
emergencies.  But  in  most  cases  the  associa- 
tion of  forest  owners  to  this  end  has  led 
also  to  progress  in  many  other  matters  in- 
separable from  improvement,  such  as  study 

110 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  reforestation  possibilities,  forest  legisla- 
tion, educating  lumberman  and  public  in 
forest  preservation,  and  the  extension  of 
cooperation  in  all  these  as  well  as  in  fire  pre- 
vention from  private  to  State  and  federal 
agencies. 

"  The  development  of  such  activities  is 
already  employing  several  highly  paid  men 
who  can  command  the  confidence,  not  only 
of  forest  owners,  but  also  of  the  public  and 
of  public  officials.  Advisers  in  legislative 
as  well  as  technical  forestry  matters  and 
particularly  proficient  in  all  that  pertains  to 
forest  protection,  their  usefulness  lies  as 
much  outside  their  own  association  as  within 
them,  and  to  be  successful  they  must  be  skil- 
ful organizers  and  campaigners.  It  is  these 
men  who  have  developed  to  its  highest  extent 
the  adaptation  to  forestry  propaganda  of 
modern  publicity  and  advertising  methods. 

"As  a  rule,  however,  these  may  be  de- 
111 


'      THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

scribed  as  graduate  positions,  filled  by  men 
of  experience  and  acquaintance  with  the 
several  agencies  involved,  rather  than  by 
newly  fledged  Foresters.  A  practical  knowl- 
edge of  protection  problems  is  essential." 

Forestry  associations  offer  a  different, 
but  often  a  most  fascinating  field,  of  work 
for  the  trained  Forester.  There  are  at 
present  39  such  associations.  The  work 
which  they  offer  has  much  in  common  with 
the  duties  of  a  State  Forester. 

Fish  and  game  associations  are  beginning 
to  employ  Foresters,  realizing  that  the  wise 
handling  of  the  forests  may  well  go  hand  in 
hand  with  the  care  of  the  game  and  fish 
which  the  forest  shelters  and  protects. 
Eventually  nearly  all  such  associations 
which  control  any  considerable  body  of  land 
in  timbered  regions  may  be  expected  to 
utilize  the  services  of  trained  Foresters  of 
their  own. 

112 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

In  addition  to  the  work  for  lumbermen 
and  for  associations  of  various  kinds,  land 
owners  in  considerable  variety  have  begun 
to  employ  Foresters.  Among  these  are  coal 
and  coke  companies,  iron  companies,  wood 
pulp  and  paper  companies  which  are  begin- 
ning to  look  after  their  supply  of  timber; 
powder,  arms,  and  ammunition  companies, 
hydraulic  and  water  companies;  a  great 
corporation  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of 
matches ;  and  a  number  of  railroads,  includ- 
ing the  Delaware  and  Hudson,  the  Illinois 
Central,  and  the  Pennsylvania.  In  addition 
to  the  need  for  cross  ties,  railroads  are 
among  'the  largest  consumers  of  lumber. 
The  Foresters  who  work  for  them  are  largely 
occupied  with  gi-owing  the  wood  supplies 
which  the  railroads  need,  and  nursery 
practice  often  occupies  a  very  large  share 
of  their  attention. 


113 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

FOREST  SCHOOLS 

Since  the  fii-st  one  was  founded  in  1898, 
the  number  of  forest  schools  in  the  United 
States  has  increased  so  rapidly  as  to  create 
a  demand  for  forest  instructors  which  it  has 
been  exceedingly  difficult  to  fill.  Indeed, 
the  increase  in  secondary  forest  schools,  or 
schools  not  of  the  first  grade,  has  doubtless 
been  more  rapid  than  the  welfare  of  the  pro- 
fession or  the  sound  practice  of  forestry  re- 
quired, and  the  brisk  demand  for  teachers 
has  led  some  men  to  take  up  the  task  of  in- 
struction who  were  not  well  fitted  for  it. 

There  are  in  this  country  to-day  23  forest 
schools  which  prepare  men  for  the  practice 
of  forestry  as  a  profession,  and  51  schools 
which  devote  themselves  to  general  instruc- 
tion in  forestry  or  to  courses  for  Forest 
Rangers  and  Forest  Guards.  The  approxi- 
mate number  of  teachers  in  all  forest  schools 

114 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

is  at  present  110,  and  this  number  will  doubt- 
less be  still  further  increased  by  the  addition 
of  new  forest  schools  or  the  expansion  of  old 
ones,  while  a  certain  number  of  places  will  be 
made  vacant  by  the  retirement  of  men  who 
find  themselves  better  fitted  for  other  lines 
of  work. 

The  teaching  staff  at  three  of  the  princi- 
pal forest  schools  of  the  country  is  as 
follows : 

At  School  A,  5  men  give  their  whole  time 
to  forest  instruction,  and  14  give  courses  in 
the  forest  school. 

Schools  B  and  C  have  each  4  men  who 
give  their  whole  time  to  the  work ;  and  4  and 
20  respectively  w^io  give  lectures  or  indi- 
vidual courses. 

In  addition  to  the  work  for  lumbermen, 
associations,  railroads,  and  others  just  men- 
tioned, an  increasing  number  of  Foresters 
are  required  to  care  for  the  forests  on  large 

115 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

landed  estates  in  different  parts  of  the 
country.  Work  of  this  kind  is  at  present 
restricted  almost  entirely  to  the  East,  and 
especially  to  New  England,  where  several 
firms  of  consulting  Foresters  give  to  it  the 
larger  portion  of  their  time.  Some  of  the 
men  thus  employed  are  as  fully  occupied 
with  the  tasks  of  the  professional  Forester  as 
any  of  the  men  in  the  Government  service, 
while  others  give  a  part  of  their  attention  to 
the  general  management  of  the  property, 
or  to  the  protection  and  propagation  of 
game  and  fish. 

THE  OPPORTUNITY 

GOVERNMENT  SERVICE 

There  is  no  more  useful  profession  than 

forestry.    The  opportunity  to  make  himself 

count  in  affairs  of  public  importance  comes 

earlier  and  more  certainly  to  the  Forester 

116 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

than  to  the  member  of  any  other  profession. 
The  first  and  most  valuable,  therefore,  of  the 
incentives  which  lead  the  Forester  to  his 
choice  is  the  chance  to  make  himself  of  use 
to  his  country  and  to  his  generation. 

But  if  this  is  the  first  matter  to  be  con- 
sidered in  deciding  upon  a  profession,  it  is 
by  no  means  the  last,  and  the  practical  con- 
siderations of  a  fair  return  for  good  work, 
bread  and  butter  for  a  man  and  his  family, 
the  certainty  or  uncertainty  of  employment, 
— such  questions  as  these  must  have  their 
full  share  of  attention. 

There  are  in  the  United  States  Forest 
Service  1059  Forest  Guards,  1247  Forest 
Rangers,  233  Supervisors,  and  Deputy 
Supervisors,  and  115  Forest  Assistants  and 
177  Forest  Examiners  who,  as  already  ex- 
plained, are  the  technical  men  in  charge  of 
practical  forestry  on  the  National  Forests. 
The  six  District  ofiSces  together  include  in 
117 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

their  membership  about  50  professional 
Foresters,  and  about  65  more  are  attached  to 
the  headquarters  at  Washington,  so  that 
allowing  for  duplications  there  are  about  335 
trained  Foresters  in  the  United  States 
Forest  Service. 

The  number  of  new  appointments  to  the 
Forest  Service  in  the  different  permanent 
grades  varies  from  year  to  year  but  may  be 
said  to  be  approximately  as  follows :  Rang- 
ers, 240  new  appointments;  Forest  Assis- 
tants, 35;  other  technical  positions,  10.  All 
appointments  as  Supervisor  are  by  promo- 
tion from  the  lists  of  Forest  Rangers  or 
Forest     Examiners. 

The  yearly  pay  of  the  Forest  Guard,  who, 
like  the  Ranger,  must  be  a  citizen  of  the 
State  in  which  his  work  lies,  is  from  $420 
to  $900.  Forest  Rangers,  who  enter  the 
Service  through  Civil  Service  examination, 
receive  from  $1100  to  $1500  per  annum. 

118 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forest  Supervisors,  practically  all  of  whom 
are  men  of  long  experience  in  forest  work, 
receive  from  $1600  to  $2700  per  annum. 
Forest  Assistants  enter  the  Forest  Service 
through  Civil  Service  examination  at  a 
salary  of  $1200  per  annum,  and  are  pro- 
moted to  a  maximum  salary  of  $2500  per 
annum,  as  Forest  Examiners.  Professional 
Foresters  at  work  in  the  District  offices  are 
recruited  mainly  from  among  the  Forest 
Assistants  and  Examiners.  They  receive 
from  $1100  to  $3200  yearly.  The  technical 
men  in  charge  at  Washington  get  from 
$1100  to  $5000  per  annum,  which  last  is  the 
pay  of  the  Forester,  at  the  head  of  the 
Sei*vice. 

STATE  SERVICE 

The  pay  of  the  State  Foresters,  or  other 
trained  Foresters  in  charge  of  State  work, 
ranges  from  $1800  to  $4000,  and  that  of 

119 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

their  technical  assistants  from  $1000  to 
$2500.  Out  of  the  total  number,  only  2  are 
directly  in  charge  of  their  own  work,  re- 
sponsible only  to  the  Governor  and  the 
Legislature,  while  19  act  as  subordinates  for 
State  forest  commissions  or  commissioners, 
who  in  the  majority  of  cases  are  political 
appointees.  In  striking  contrast  with  the 
United  States  Forest  Service,  politics  has 
so  far  been  a  dangerous,  if  not  a  dominating, 
influence  in  the  forest  work  of  most  of  the 
States  which  have  undertaken  it. 

Like  the  National  Forests,  the  State 
Forests  already  in  existence  will  create  an 
increasing  demand  for  the  service  of  techni- 
cal Foresters.  Indeed,  as  similar  forests  are 
acquired  by  most  of  the  States  which  are 
now  without  them,  as  undoubtedly  they  will 
be,  the  extent  of  the  opportunity  for  pro- 
fessionally trained  Foresters  in  State  work 
is  certain  to  grow. 

120 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

PRIVATE  WORK 

At  present,  the  demand  for  Foresters  in 
private  work  is  far  less  pressing  and  the 
opening  is  far  less  attractive  than  it  will  be 
in  the  not  distant  future.  The  number  of 
men  that  will  be  requned  for  this  work  will 
depend  on  the  development  of  legislation  as 
well  as  upon  the  desire  of  the  private  owners, 
lumbermen  and  others,  to  protect  and  im- 
prove their  property.  The  time  is  coming, 
and  coming  before  long,  when  all  private 
owners  of  forests  in  the  mountains,  or  on 
steep  slopes  elsewhere,  will  be  required  by 
law  to  provide  for  their  protection  and  re- 
production. When  that  time  arrives,  the  de- 
mand for  Foresters  in  private  work  will 
increase  to  very  large  dimensions,  and  will 
probably  do  so  far  more  rapidly  than 
Foresters  can  be  trained  to  supply  it. 

The  pay  of  Foresters  in  private  work, 
whether  in  the  employ  of  lumbermen,  rail- 

121 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

roads,  shooting  and  fishing  clubs,  the  pro- 
prietors of  large  private  estates,  or  other 
forest  owners,  has  so  far  been  somewhat 
better  than  that  for  similar  services  in 
Government  employ.  This  money  differ- 
ence in  favor  of  private  employment  is,  in 
my  judgment,  likely  to  continue,  and  eventu- 
ally the  pay  of  consulting  Foresters  of  estab- 
lished reputation  employed  in  passing  upon 
the  value  of  forests  offered  as  security  for 
investments,  or  in  estimating  the  standing 
timber  for  purchasers  or  sellers,  or  in  other 
professional  work  of  large  business  import- 
ance, will  certainly  reach  very  satisfactory 
figures. 

TEACHLNG 

Approximately  110  Foresters  are  en- 
gaged in  teaching  in  the  United  States  to- 
day. Their  pay  varies  from  about  $1000  to 
about  $3000,  and  is  likely  to  increase  rather 
more  rapidly  than  that  of  other  professional 

122 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

teachers,  since  less  of  them  are  available. 
It  is  not  likely,  however,  that  the  number 
of  openings  in  teaching  forestry  will  be 
large  within  the  next  ten  years. 


TRAINING 

The  length  of  time  which  his  training  is 
to  take  and  the  particular  courses  of  instruc- 
tion which  he  shall  pursue  are  to  the  young 
man  contemplating  the  study  of  forestry 
matters  of  the  first  importance.  The  first 
thing  to  insist  on  in  that  connection  is  that 
the  training  must  be  thorough.  It  is  natural 
that  a  young  man  should  be  eager  to  begin 
his  life  work  and  therefore  somewhat  im- 
patient of  the  long  grind  of  a  thorough 
schooling.  But  however  natural,  it  is  not 
the  part  of  wisdom  to  cut  short  the  time  of 
preparation.  When  the  serious  work  of  the 
trained  Forester  begins  later  on,  there  will 

123 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

be  little  or  no  time  to  fill  the  gaps  left  at 
school,  and  the  earnest  desire  of  the  young 
Forester  will  be  that  he  had  spent  more  time 
in  his  preparation  rather  than  less.  In  this 
matter  I  speak  as  one  who  has  gathered  a 
conviction  from  personal  experience,  and  be- 
lieves he  knows. 

It  would  be  useless  to  attempt  to  strike 
an  average  of  the  work  prescribed  and  the 
courses  given  at  the  various  forest  schools. 
I  shall  describe,  therefore,  not  an  average 
system  of  instruction  but  one  which,  in  the 
judgment  of  men  entitled  to  an  opinion,  and 
in  my  own  judgment,  is  sound,  practical,  and 
eiFective. 

Forest  schools  may  roughly  be  divided 
between  those  which  do  not  prepare  men 
for  professional  work  in  forestry,  and  those 
which  do.  The  latter  may  be  divided  again 
into  undergraduate  schools  and  graduate 
schools.    Most  of  the  former  offer  a  four- 

124 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

year  undergraduate  course,  and  thei'r  stu- 
dents receive  their  degrees  at  the  same  time 
as  other  members  of  the  University  who 
entered  at  the  same  time  with  them.  The 
graduate  schools  require  a  college  degree,  or 
its  equivalent  in  certain  subjects,  before  they 
will  receive  a  student.  The  men  who  have 
completed  their  courses  have  usually,  there- 
fore, pursued  more  extensive  and  more 
advanced  studies  in  forestry,  are  better 
trained,  and  are  themselves  older  and  more 
ready  to  accept  the  responsibilities  which 
forestry  brings  upon  them.  For  these  rea- 
sons, the  graduate  school  training  is  by  far 
the  more  desirable,  in  my  opinion. 

The  subjects  required  for  entrance  to  a 
graduate  forest  school  should  include  at 
least  one  full  year  in  college  botany,  cover- 
ing the  general  morphology,  histology,  and 
physiology  of  plants,  one  course  each  in 
geology,      physics,     inorganic     chemistry, 

125 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

zoology,  and  economics,  with  mathematics 
through  trigonometry,  and  a  reading  knowl- 
edge of  French  or  German.  Some  acquaint- 
ance with  mechanical  drawing  is  also  de- 
sirable but  not  absolutely  necessary.  Other 
courses  which  are  extremely  desirable,  if  not 
altogether  essential,  are  mineralogy,  meteor- 
ology, mechanics,  physical  geography, 
organic  chemistry,  and  possibly  calculus, 
which  may  be  of  use  in  timber  physics. 

One  or  two  forest  schools  begin  their 
course  of  training  for  the  first  year  in  July 
instead  of  in  October,  in  order  to  give  their 
students  some  acquaintance  with  the  woods 
from  the  Forester's  standpoint  before  the 
more  formal  courses  begin.  The  result  of 
this  plan  is  to  give  increased  vividness  and 
reality  to  all  the  couirses  which  follow  the 
work  in  the  woods,  to  make  clear  the  appli- 
cation of  what  is  taught,  and  so  to  add 
greatly  to  the  efficiency  of  the  teaching. 

126 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

In  addition  to  this  preliminary  touch  with 
the  woods,  any  wise  plan  of  teaching  will 
include  many  forest  excursions  and  much 
practical  field  work  as  vitally  important 
parts  of  the  instruction.  This  outdoor  work 
should  occur  throughout  the  whole  course, 
winter  and  summer,  and  in  addition,  the  last 
term  of  the  senior  year  may  well  be  spent 
wholly  in  the  woods,  where  the  students  can 
be  trained  in  the  management  of  logging 
operations  and  milling,  and  can  get  their 
final  practice  work  in  surveying  and  map- 
making,  in  preparing  forest  working  plans, 
estimating  timber,  laying  out  roads  and 
trails,  making  plans  for  lumber  operations, 
and  other  similar  practical  work.  Several 
of  the  best  forest  schools  have  adopted  this 
plan. 

The  regular  courses  of  a  graduate  forest 
school  usually  cover  a  period  of  two  years. 
They  should  fit  a  student  for  nearly  every 

127 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

phase  of  professional  work  in  forestry,  and 
should  give  him  a  sound  preparation  not 
merely  for  practical  work  in  the  woods,  but 
also  for  the  broader  work  of  forest  organiza- 
tion in  the  Govdrnment  Service  in  the 
United  States  and  in  the  Philippines,  and 
in  the  service  of  the  States;  for  handling 
large  tracts  of  private  forest  lands;  for  ex- 
pert work  in  the  employ  of  lumbermen  and 
other  forest  owners ;  for  public  speaking  and 
writing;  for  teaching;  and  for  scientific 
research. 

Every  well  equipped  forest  school  will 
have  a  working  library  of  books,  pamphlets, 
and  lumber  journals  published  here  and 
abroad,  an  herbarium  at  least  of  native  trees 
and  shrubs  and  of  the  more  important  forest 
herbs,  together  with  a  collection  of  forest 
tree  fruits  and  seeds,  and  specimens  of  do- 
mestic and  foreign  timbers.  Exhibits  show- 
ing the  uses  of  woods  and  the  various  forms 

128 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

of  tools  used  in  lumbering,  as  well  as  the  ap- 
paratus for  laboratory  work  and  survey- 
ing, and  forest  instruments  for  work  in  the 
field,  are  often  of  great  value  to  the  student. 
What  should  a  young  man  learn  at  a 
forest  school?  Doubtless  there  will  be  some 
variation  of  opinion  as  to  the  exact  course 
of  study  which  will  best  fit  him  for  the  work 
of  a  Forester  in  the  United  States.  The 
following  list  expresses  the  best  judgment 
on  the  subject  I  have  been  able  to  form: 

Dendrology  : 

The  first  step  in  forestry  is  to  become 
acquainted  with  the  various  kinds  of  trees. 
The  coming  Forester  must  learn  to  identify 
the  woody  plants  of  the  United  States,  both 
in  summer  and  in  winter.  He  must  under- 
stand their  shapes  and  outward  structures, 
and  where  they  are  found,  and  he  must  begin 
his  knowledge  of  the  individual  habits  of 

9  129 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

growth  and  life  which  distinguish  the  trees 
which  are  important  in  forestry. 

Forest  Physiography: 

Trees  grow  in  the  soil.  It  is  important  to 
know  something  of  the  origin  of  soils  and 
their  properties  and  values,  and  of  the 
principal  soil  types,  with  special  reference 
to  their  effect  upon  plant  distribution  and 
welfare.  The  origin,  nature,  value,  and  con- 
servation of  humus,  that  most  essential  in- 
gredient of  the  forest  floor;  the  field  methods 
of  mapping  soil  types ;  the  rock  types  most 
important  in  their  relation  to  soils,  how  they 
are  made  up,  how  they  make  soil,  and  where 
they  occur — something  should  be  learned  of 
all  this.  Finally,  under  this  head,  the  stu- 
dent ought  to  get  a  usable  knowledge  of  the 
physiographic  regions  of  the  United  States, 
their  boundaries,  geologic  structure,  topog- 
raphy, drainage,  and  soils, — all  this  natu- 

130 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

rally  with  special  reference  to  the  relation 
between  these  basic  facts  and  the   forest. 


Silvicultuee: 

Silviculture  is  the  art  of  caring  for  forests, 
and  therefore  the  backbone  of  forestry.  It 
is  based  upon  Silvics,  which  is  the  knowledge 
of  the  habits  or  behavior  of  trees  in  their 
relations  to  light,  heat,  and  moisture,  to  the 
air  and  soil,  and  to  each  other.  It  is  the  facts 
embraced  in  Silvics  which  explain  the  com- 
position, character,  and  form  of  the  forest; 
the  success  or  failure  of  tree  species  in 
competition  with  each  other ;  the  distribution 
of  trees  and  of  forests;  the  development  of 
each  tree  in  height,  diameter,  and  volume; 
its  form  and  length  of  life;  the  methods  of 
its  reproduction;  and  the  effect  of  all  these 
upon  the  nature  and  the  evolution  of  the  city 
of  trees,  and  upon  forest  types  and  their  life 
histories. 

131 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

This  is  knowledge  the  Forester  can  not 
do  without.  Silvics  is  the  foundation  of  his 
professional  capacity,  and  as  a  student  he 
can  better  afford  to  scamp  any  part  of  his 
training  rather  than  this.  A  man  may  be 
a  poor  Forester  who  knows  Silvics,  but  no 
man  can  be  a  good  Forester  who  does  not. 

The  practice  of  Silviculture  has  to  do  with 
the  treatment  of  woodlands.  The  forest 
student  must  learn  the  different  methods  of 
reproducing  forests  by  different  methods  of 
cutting  them  down,  and  the  application  of 
these  methods  in  different  American  forest 
regions.  There  are  also  manj^  methods  of 
cutting  for  the  improvement  of  the  charac- 
ter and  growth  of  forests,  as  well  as  for 
utilizing  material  that  otherwise  would  go  to 
waste,  before  the  final  reproduction  cuttings 
can  be  made.  The  ways  in  which  forests 
need  protection  are  equally  numerous,  and 
of  these  by  far  the  most  important  in  our 

132 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

country  have  to  do  with  methods  of  prevent- 
ing or  extinguishing  forest  fires. 

Well  managed  forests  are  handled  under 
working  plans  based  on  the  silvical  char- 
acter and  silvicultural  needs  of  the  forest,  as 
well  as  upon  the  purpose  set  by  the  owner  as 
the  object  of  management,  which  is  often 
closely  related  to  questions  of  forest  finance. 
The  student  should  ground  himself  thor- 
oughly in  the  making  of  silvicultural  work- 
ing plans,  and  the  more  practice  in  making 
them  he  can  get,  the  bettetr.  So,  too,  with 
the  marking  of  trees  in  reproduction  and  im- 
provement cuttings  under  as  many  different 
kinds  of  forest  conditions  as  may  be  possible. 
The  artificial  reproduction  of  forests  is 
likely  to  occupy  far  more  of  the  Forester's 
attention  in  the  future  than  it  has  in  the  past. 
Hence  the  collection  of  tree  seeds,  their 
fertility  and  vitality  as  affecting  their 
handling,  the  best  methods  of  seeding  and 

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THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

planting,  and  the  lessons  of  past  failures 
and  successes,  with  the  whole  subject  of 
nursery  work  and  the  care  of  young  planta- 
tions, must  by  no  means  be  overlooked. 

Much  incidental  information  on  the  sub- 
ject of  forest  protection  will  come  to  the 
student  in  the  course  of  his  studies,  but 
special  attention  should  be  given  to  learn- 
ing which  of  the  species  of  forest  insects  are 
most  injurious  to  forest  vegetation,  how 
their  attacks  are  made,  how  they  may  be  dis- 
covered, and  the  best  ways  by  which  such 
attacks  can  be  mitigated  or  controlled.  So 
also  the  diseases  of  timber  trees  will  repay 
hard  study.  The  principal  fungi  which 
causes  such  diseases  should  be  known,  how 
they  attack  the  trees,  and  what  are  the  reme- 
dies, as  well  as  (although  this  is  far  less 
important)  the  way  to  treat  tree  wounds  and 
the  correct  methods  of  pruning. 


134 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

Forest  Economics: 

Forest  Economics  is  a  large  subject.  It 
deals  with  the  productive  value  of  forests 
to  their  owners,  and  with  the  larger  question 
of  their  place  in  the  economy  of  the  Nation. 
It  considers  their  use  as  conservers  of  the 
soil  and  the  streams ;  their  effect  on  climate, 
locally,  as  in  the  case  of  windbrakes,  and  on 
a  larger  scale;  and  their  contribution  to  the 
public  welfare  as  recreation  grounds  and 
game  refuges.  It  includes  a  knowledge  of 
wastes  from  which  the  forests  suffer,  and  the 
consequent  loss  to  industry  and  to  the  public, 
and  in  this  it  does  not  omit  the  effects  of 
forest  fires.  Statistics  of  forest  consump- 
tion; the  relation  of  the  forest  to  railroads, 
mines,  and  other  wood-using  industries;  its 
effect  upon  agriculture,  stock  raising,  and 
manufacturing  industries;  and  its  effect 
upon  the  use  of  the  streams  for  navigation, 
power,  irrigation,  and  domestic  water  sup- 

135 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ply;  all  these  are  important.  The  student 
should  consider  also  the  forest  resources  of 
the  United  States,  their  present  condition, 
and  the  needs  they  must  be  fitted  to  supply. 

Forest  Engineering  : 

Forest  engineering  is  steadily  becoming 
more  and  more  necessary  to  the  Forester. 
He  must  have  a  working  knowledge  of  the 
use  of  surveying  instruments;  the  making 
of  topographic  surveys;  the  office  work  re- 
quired of  an  engineer;  the  making  of  topo- 
graphic maps;  the  location  of  trails,  roads, 
and  railroads;  and  the  construction  of 
bridges,  telephone  lines,  cabins,  and  fences, 
together  with  logging  railroads,  slides,  dams, 
and  flumes. 

Forest  Mensuration: 

Forest  mensuration,  the  art  of  measur- 
ing the  contents  and  growth  of  trees  and 
forest  stands,  is  of  fundamental  importance. 

136 


FOREST    SERVICE    MEN    MAKING    FRESH    MEASUREMENTS 
MISSOURI    SWAMPS 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  principles  and  methods  of  timber  esti- 
mating, the  actual  measurement  of  standing 
timber,  log  rules,  the  making  of  stem 
analyses  to  show  the  increase  of  a  tree  in 
diameter,  height,  and  volume,  the  construc- 
tion of  tables  of  current  and  mean  aimual 
growth  per  acre  and  per  tree,  and  the 
methods  of  using  the  information  thus 
formulated, — all  these  are  necessarily  of 
keen  interest  to  the  man  who  later  on  will 
have  to  apply  his  knowledge  in  the  practical 
management  of  woods. 

Forest  Management: 

Forest  management  is  concerned  with  the 
principles  involved  in  planning  the  handling 
of  forests.  Questions  of  the  valuation  of 
forests  form  a  most  essential  part  of  it, — 
such  questions  as  the  cost  of  growing  timber 
crops,  the  value  of  land  for  that  purpose, 
the  value  of  young  timber,  the  valuation  of 

137 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

damage  to  the  forest,  and  the  legal  status 
of  the  damage  and  the  remedy. 

Business  principles  are  as  necessary  in 
the  management  of  forests  as  in  the  manage- 
ment of  mills  or  farms.  These  business 
principles  work  out  in  different  forms  of 
forest  policy  adapted  to  the  needs  of  differ- 
ent kinds  of  owners,  such  as  lumbermen  and 
the  Government.  What  the  young  Forester 
has  learned  about  growth  and  yield,  about 
timber  estimates  and  forest  statistics,  and 
many  other  matters,  all  finds  its  application 
in  forest  management.  He  must  also  con- 
sider the  methods  and  principles  for  regulat- 
ing the  cut  of  timber,  or  for  securing  sus- 
tained annual  yields.  All  this  forms  the 
basis  for  the  preparation  of  working  plans 
for  the  utilization  of  forests  under  American 
economic  and  silvicultural  conditions,  not 
only  without  injury,  but  with  benefit,  to 
their  continued  productiveness. 

138 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

The  subjects  of  forest  surveying  and 
working  plans  are  intimately  related.  Maps 
are  indispensable  in  the  practical  work  of 
making  a  forest  working  plan.  Topo- 
graphic mapping,  timber  estimating,  forest 
description,  and  the  location  of  logging 
roads,  trails,  and  fire  lines,  together  with 
Silvics  and  a  knowledge  of  growth  and 
yield — these  and  many  other  subjects  enter 
into  the  making  of  a  practical  working  plan 
to  harvest  a  forest  crop  and  secure  a  second 
growth  of  timber.  The  student  should  get 
all  the  practice  he  can  in  ma;rking  timber 
for  cutting  under  such  a  plan. 

The  young  Forester  must  make  himself 
familiar  with  the  administration  of  the  Na- 
tional Forests.  He  must  know  how  the 
business  of  the  forest  is  handled,  how  it  is 
protected  against  fire,  how  the  timber  is 
sold,  how  claims  and  entries  are  dealt  with 
under  the  public  land  laws,  how  land  in  the 
139 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

National  Forests  is  used  to  make  homes, 
how  trespass  is  controlled,  how  the  livestock 
industry  on  the  National  Forests  is  fostered 
and  regulated,  and  how  the  extremely  valu- 
able watersheds  they  contain  are  safe- 
guarded and  improved. 

The  Practice  of  Forestry: 

The  practice  of  forestry  is  necessarily 
different  in  different  kinds  of  forests  and 
under  different  economic  conditions.  All 
that  the  Forester  knows  must  here  be  ap- 
plied, and  applied  in  workable  fashion,  not 
only  to  the  forest,  but  to  the  men  who  use 
the  forest.  This  is  peculiarly  true  of  the 
practice  of  forestry  in  National  and  State 
Forests  everjrwhere. 

Forest  Products: 

Under  this   general  subject,   the   forest 
student  must  acquaint  himself,  through  the 
140 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

microscope,  with  the  minute  anatomy  of  the 
woody  stem  of  coniferous  and  hroadleaf 
trees,  and  the  occurrence,  form,  structure, 
and  variability  of  the  elements  which  make 
it  up.  He  should  become  familiar  with  the 
methods  of  classifying  the  economic  woods 
of  the  United  States,  both  under  the  micro- 
scope and  with  the  unassisted  eye,  and  for 
this  purpose  should  know  something  of 
their  color,  gloss,  grain,  density,  odor,  and 
resonance  both  as  aids  to  identification  and 
as  to  their  importance  in  giving  value  to  the 
wood;  the  defects  of  timber;  its  moisture 
content,  density,  shrinking,  checking,  warp- 
ing; and  the  effect  of  all  these  upon  its  uses. 
The  chemical  composition  of  wood  and  of 
minor  forest  products,  such  as  tannins  and 
dye  stuffs,  is  important;  the  properties 
governing  the  fuel  value  and  the  other 
values  of  wood  must  be  studied,  as  well 
as  the  methods  of  using  these  properties  in 
141 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  making  of  charcoal  and  wood  pulp,  in 
wood  distillation,  the  turpentine  industiy, 
in  tanning  and  dyeing,  and  in  other 
industries. 

A  field  of  great  importance  is  the  relation 
between  the  physical  structure  and  the  me- 
chanical properties  of  wood.  A  student 
should  inform  himself  concerning  the 
standard  methods  of  testing  the  properties 
of  stiTictural  timber,  by  bending,  compres- 
sion, shearing,  torsion,  impact,  and  the  hard- 
ness and  tension  tests,  with  their  relation  to 
heat  and  moisture,  and  the  methods  of  sea- 
soning, the  use  of  preservatives,  and  the 
eiFect  of  the  rate  of  application  of  the  load. 

Woods  vary  as  to  their  durability.  It  is 
important,  therefore,  to  know  about  the 
causes  of  decay,  the  decay-resisting  power 
of  various  woods,  the  relation  of  moisture 
content  to  durability,  why  the  seasoning  of 
wood  is  eiFective,  the  theory  and  the  com- 

142 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

mercial  methods  of  wood  preservation,  and 
its  relation  to  the  timber  supply. 

Lumbering  : 

Lumbering  tlie  Forester  should  know 
more  than  a  little  about,  as  how  to  organize 
lumber  operations,  the  equipment  and 
management  of  logging  and  milling  in  vari- 
ous forest  regions,  the  manufacture,  season- 
ing, and  grading  of  the  rough  and  finished 
lumber,  cost  keeping  in  a  lumber  business, 
methods  of  sale,  market  requirements  at 
home  and  abroad,  prices,  the  relation  of  the 
lumber  tariff  to  forestry,  lumber  associa- 
tions, timber  bonds,  and  insurance.  The 
practical  construction  of  logging  equipment, 
such  as  aerial  tramways,  log  slides,  dams, 
and  flumes,  is  of  peculiar  importance,  and 
so  are  the  conditions  and  changes  of  the 
lumber  market. 

Experience  on  the  land  of  some  operat- 

143 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

ing  lumber  company  is  of  great  value.  It 
should  include  a  study  of  logging  methods, 
log  scaling,  waste  in  logging,  the  equipment 
and  handling  of  the  mill,  the  sawing  and 
care  of  rough  and  finished  lumber,  its  grad- 
ing, and  so  far  as  possible  an  acquaintance 
with  wood  working  plants  of  various  kinds, 
and  with  the  operations  of  turpentine 
orcharding.  Studies  along  these  lines  may 
with  advantage  be  almost  indefinitely  ex- 
tended to  include,  for  example  the  utiliza- 
tion of  steam  machinery  for  logging,  the 
improvement  of  streams  for  driving  logs, 
and  other  similar  questions. 

Forest  Law  : 

The  Forester  must  have  at  least  a  slight 
acquaintance  with  forest  law,  both  State 
and  National.  It  is  important  to  know 
something  of  the  general  principles  of  classi- 
fying the  public  lands,  of  State  laws  for 

144 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

fire  protection,  the  development  of  forest 
policies  in  the  various  States  as  legally  ex- 
pressed, and  the  important  laws  which 
govern  the  creation  and  management  of 
State  forest  reserves. 

Forest  taxation,  State  and  local,  which 
has,  when  excessive,  so  much  to  do  with 
hastening  forest  destruction,  is  one  of  the 
most  important  questions  which  can  engage 
the  attention  of  the  Forester. 

Under  the  subject  of  Federal  Forest  Law, 
it  is  not  sufficient  for  the  student  to  acquaint 
himself  with  those  laws  alone  which  govern 
the  forests.  He  must  also  have  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  creation  of  a  forest  policy  out 
of  the  public  land  policy  of  the  United 
States,  some  acquaintance  with  the  public 
land  laws.  A  good  working  knowledge  of 
the  laws  and  regulations  governing  the 
National  Forests  is  indispensable,  and  the 
student  should  at  least  know  where  to  find 

10  145 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

the  more  important  court  decisions  by  which 
they  are  interpreted. 

Forest  History  : 

The  history  of  forestry  in  Europe  has  a 
certain  importance  in  throwing  light  on  our 
own  forest  history  and  its  probable  develop- 
ment, and  this  is  especially  true  of  the  his- 
tory of  the  administration  of  Government 
forest  lands  and  of  education  in  forestry. 

The  history  of  forestry  in  the  United 
States,  however,  is  far  more  important.  The 
Forester  must  know  the  story  of  the  growth 
and  change  of  National  Forest  organiza- 
tions, the  Forest  Officers  and  their  duties,  the 
cost,  size,  and  effectiveness  of  the  Govern- 
ment Forest  Service  at  diiFerent  times,  the 
Civil  Service  regulations  under  which  it  is  re- 
cruited, and  other  similar  matters.  It  is 
important  likewise  for  him  to  become 
thoroughly     saturated    with    an     intimate 

146 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

knowledge  of  the  development  of  forestry 
in  public  opinion  in  the  United  States,  its 
extension  to  the  other  natural  resources 
through  the  conservation  policy,  and  the 
relation  of  the  Forester's  point  of  view  thus 
expressed  to  the  present  welfare  and  future 
success  of  the  Nation. 

It  is  not  always  possible  for  the  forest 
student  to  become  a  woodsman  before 
entering  his  profession,  but  it  is  most  de- 
sirable. A  Forester  must  be  able  to  travel 
the  forest  alone  by  day  and  by  night,  he 
should  be  a  good  fisherman  and  a  good 
hunter  (which  is  far  more  important  than 
to  be  a  good  shot),  and  deeply  interested  in 
both  fish  and  game.  The  better  horseman 
he  is  the  better  Forester  he  will  be,  and  espe- 
cially if  he  can  pack  and  handle  pack  horses 
in  the  woods.  So  that  whether  the  young 
Forester  begins  with  a  practical  knowledge 
of  woodcraft  or  not,  he  must  not  fail  to 

147 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

acquire   or  improve  it,  for  without  it  he  will 
endanger  the  whole  success  of  his  career. 

Some  knowledge  of  first  aid  to  the  in- 
jured is  likely  to  be  of  great  and  sudden 
value  to  a  man  so  much  of  whose  life  must 
be  spent  in  the  woods,  at  a  distance  from 
medical  aid.  The  time  spent  in  getting  in- 
formation on  this  subject  will  be  anything 
but  wasted. 

English  : 

The  ability  to  write  and  to  speak  good, 
plain,  understandable  English  is  a  prime 
requisite  in  the  Forester's  training.  It  is  a 
part  of  education  frequently  neglected,  espe- 
cially by  those  in  engineering  or  scientific 
pursuits ;  yet  its  importance  for  the  Forester 
is  very  large.  As  already  pointed  out,  the 
Forester  is  on  the  firing  line  of  the  conserva- 
tion movement;  he  is  pioneering  in  a  new^ 
profession.  For  this  reason  he  will  often 
need  to  explain  his  stand  and  convert  others 

148 


THE  TRAINING  OF  A  FORESTER 

to  his  beliefs.  In  addition,  he  must  make 
available  to  others  the  results  he  secures 
from  the  study  of  new  facts.  A  usable 
command  of  his  own  language  will  stand  him 
in  good  stead,  whether  he  needs  to  talk  face 
to  face  with  another  man,  or  from  a  plat- 
form to  a  concourse  of  people,  or  to  put  into 
readable  printed  form  the  results  of  his 
observations  or  his  thinking. 

When  the  young  Forester  has  completed 
the  courses  of  his  school  training  in  America, 
the  question  may  be  raised  whether  he 
should  supplement  his  training  by  study 
abroad.  I  am  strongly  of  opinion  that  he 
should  do  so  if  he  can.  Study  abroad  is  not 
indispensable  for  the  American  Forester, 
but  it  can  do  him  nothing  but  good  to  see  in 
practical  operation  the  methods  of  forestry 
which  have  resulted  from  the  long  experience 
of  other  lands,  and  especially  to  become 
familiar  with  the  effect  of  sound  forestry 
on  the  forest. 

149 


